Prosecutions for July 2015
Referring Agency: Internal Revenue Service
Table 1. Criminal Prosecutions
The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during July 2015 the government reported 118 new prosecutions for these matters. Those cases were referred by the Internal Revenue Service.
According to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), this number is down 13.9 percent over the previous month.
The comparisons of the number of defendants charged are based on case-by-case information obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (see Table 1).
When monthly 2015 prosecutions of this type are compared with those of the same period in
the previous year, the number of filings was only slightly down (-0.5%).
Prosecutions over the past year are still much higher than they were five years ago.
Overall, the data show that prosecutions of this type are up 11.4 percent from levels reported in 2010.
The growth in
these cases is partly related to increases in the matters filed in U.S. Magistrate Courts. If magistrate cases
are excluded and only Federal District Court cases are counted, the overall increase in
prosecutions is 8.4 percent instead of 11.4 percent.
The evidence suggests that part of the difference may be the result of improvements in the recording of the magistrate cases
by the Justice Department.
Figure 1. Monthly Trends in Prosecutions
The increase from the levels five years ago in prosecutions for these matters is shown more clearly in Figure 1.
The vertical bars in Figure 1
represent the number of prosecutions of this type recorded on a month-to-month
basis. Where a prosecution was initially filed in U.S. Magistrate Court and then transferred to the U.S. District Court,
the magistrate filing date was used since this provides an earlier indicator of actual trends.
The superimposed line on the bars plots the six-month moving average so
that natural fluctuations are smoothed out. The one and five-year rates of change in Table 1 and in the sections that follow are all based upon this six-month moving average. To view trends year-by-year rather than month-by-month, see TRAC's annual report series for a broader picture.
Cases were classified by prosecutors into more specific types.
The largest number of prosecutions of these matters in July 2015 was for "Fraud-Tax", accounting for 34.7 percent of prosecutions. Prosecutions were also filed for "Withheld by Govt from TRAC (FOIA challen" (27.1%), "
Drugs-Organized Crime Task Force" (8.5%), "Money Laundering-Other" (6.8%), "Fraud-Other" (5.9%), "Fraud-Identity Theft-Aggravated" (3.4%), "Customs-Currency Violations" (2.5%), "Fraud-Securities" (2.5%).
See Figure 2.
Figure 2. Specific Types of Prosecutions
Prosecutions in U.S. Magistrate Courts
Top Ranked Lead Charges
In July 2015, 14 defendants
in cases for these matters were
filed in U.S. Magistrate Courts. These courts handle less serious
misdemeanor cases, including what are called "petty offenses." In
addition, complaints are sometimes filed in the magistrate courts before
an indictment or information is entered. In these cases, the matter
starts in the magistrate courts and later moves to the district court
where subsequent proceedings take place.
In the magistrate courts in July the most frequently cited lead charge was
Title 18 U.S.C Section 1505 involving "Obstruction of proceedings before departments, etc". This was the lead charge
for 28.6 percent of all magistrate filings in July.
Prosecutions in U.S. District Courts
In July 2015, 104 defendants in new cases
for these matters were charged in the U.S. District Courts. In addition during July there
were an additional 6 defendants whose cases moved from the magistrate
courts to the U.S. district courts after an indictment or information
was filed. The sections which follow cover both sets of cases and
therefore cover all matters filed in district court during July.
Top Ranked Lead Charges
Table 2 shows the top lead charges recorded in the prosecutions of matters
filed in U.S. District Court during July 2015 referred by the Internal Revenue Service.
Table 2. Top Charges Filed
"Fraud and False statements" (Title 26 U.S.C Section 7206) was the most frequent recorded lead charge.
Ranked 2nd in frequency was the lead charge "Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud US" under Title 18 U.S.C Section 371.
Ranked 3rd was "Attempt and conspiracy" under Title 21 U.S.C Section 846.
Top Ranked Judicial Districts
In July 2015 the Justice Department said the government brought 42.1 prosecutions for every ten million people in the United States.
Understandably, there is great variation in the number of prosecutions that are filed in each of the nation's ninety-four federal judicial districts.
The districts registering the
largest number of prosecutions of this type last month are shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Top 10 Districts
The Southern District of California (San Diego) — with 12 prosecutions — was the most active during July 2015.
The Southern District of Florida (Miami), Southern District of Indiana (Indianapolis) and Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn) ranked 2nd.
Top Ranked District Judges
At any one time, there are about 680 federal District Court judges working in the United States. The judges recorded with the largest number of new crime cases of this type during July 2015 are shown in Table 4.
A total of 11 out of the "top ten" judges were in districts which were in the top ten with the largest number of filings , while the remaining 3 judges were from other districts.
(Because of ties, there were a total of 14 judges in the "top ten" rankings.)
Judge John A. Houston in the Southern District of California (San Diego) ranked 1st with 10 defendants in cases.
Judge Sarah Evans Barker in the Southern District of Indiana (Indianapolis) ranked 2nd with 4 defendants in cases.
Judges
Paul Gregory Byron in the Middle District of Florida (Tampa), Stephen Joseph Murphy, III in the Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit), Jose L. Linares in the District of New Jersey and Melinda Harmon in the Southern District of Texas (Houston)
ranked 3rd with 3 defendants in cases.
Report Generated: September 9, 2015