U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey announced on Friday that the Eastern District of Tennessee collected $9,741,070.01 in criminal and civil actions in Fiscal Year 2018. Of this amount, $7,782,647.37 was collected in criminal actions and $1,958,422.64 was collected in civil actions.
Additionally, the Eastern District of Tennessee worked with other U.S. Attorney’s offices and components of the Department of Justice to collect an additional $42,948,325.81 in cases pursued jointly with these offices.
Of this amount, $32,298.67 was collected in criminal actions and $42,916,027.14 was collected in civil actions.
As a whole, the Justice Department collected nearly $15 billion in civil and criminal actions in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2018. The $14,839,821,650 in collections in FY 2018 represents nearly seven times the appropriated $2.13 billion ($2,136,750,000) budget for the 94 U.S. Attorneys’ offices.
U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey praised the hard work of the Assistant U.S. Attorneys and the Monetary Recovery Unit in his office stating, “In addition to protecting the public by prosecuting and locking up criminals, the overall mission of the U.S. Attorney’s Office includes helping to compensate victims to the fullest extent possible. Restitution, fines and assessments collected by our office benefit all victims of crime. Collected restitution is paid directly to the victims of the crimes for whom it was ordered, while collected fines and assessments are paid to the Crime Victims’ Fund to fund state victim compensation and assistance programs.”
“The men and women of the U.S. Attorneys’ offices across the country work diligently, day in and day out, to see that the citizens of our nation receive justice. The money that we are able to recover for victims and this country as a whole is a direct result of their hard work,” Director James A. Crowell, IV, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.
The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, along with the department’s litigating divisions, are responsible for enforcing and collecting civil and criminal debts owed to the U.S. and criminal debts owed to federal crime victims. The law requires defendants to pay restitution to victims of certain federal crimes who have suffered a physical injury or financial loss. While restitution is paid to the victim, criminal fines and felony assessments are paid to the department’s Crime Victims Fund, which distributes the funds collected to federal and state victim compensation and victim assistance programs.
The largest civil collections were from affirmative civil enforcement cases in which the United States recovered government money lost to fraud or other misconduct or collected fines imposed on individuals and/or corporations for violations of federal health, safety, civil rights, or environmental laws. In addition, civil debts were collected on behalf of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service, the Small Business Administration, and the Department of Education.
Additionally, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Tennessee, working with partner agencies and divisions, collected $5,539,839.00 in asset forfeiture actions in FY 2018. Forfeited assets deposited into the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund are used to restore funds to crime victims and for a variety of law enforcement purposes.