Fact Sheet: Department of Justice Efforts to Rebuild New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina

NEW ORLEANS, May 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In the two and one-half years since Hurricane Katrina flooded the city of New Orleans and battered the region, the Department of Justice has sought to do its part to assist in the efforts to rebuild the city. These efforts include groundbreaking partnerships with state and local officials to strengthen the criminal justice system; assisting local law enforcement in protecting communities; fighting violent crime with both manpower and funding; investigating and prosecuting fraud through the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force; and providing needed assistance to victims of crime. Following is an outline of some of these efforts.

New Orleans Family Justice Center

-- The New Orleans Family Justice Center officially opened to serve
domestic violence and sexual assault victims/survivors on Wednesday,
August 29, 2007 -- the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The
U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (OVW)
initially made $3 million available to create this comprehensive
victim service and support center, where victims can find the services
they need in one central location.

-- This center, which occupies a historic 19th century firehouse donated
by the city of New Orleans, opened in record time following the
announcement of the funding the previous February. To date, the center
has served the needs of 139 victims of domestic abuse, providing
critical needs, protection and services to people throughout the
metropolitan New Orleans area. Services provided by our partners there
include social services, protective services, civil legal services,
judicial (temporary restraining order) assistance, court advocacy, and
police advocacy.

Grant Funding

-- Last year the Department of Justice announced more than $21 million in
grants from the OVW, Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and Office of
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).

-- The Department has made more than $30 million available to the city of
New Orleans and Orleans Parish to help rebuild the criminal justice
system there.

-- In total, the Department has made available to the state of Louisiana
more than $86 million in justice assistance grants (JAG) and Katrina
relief law enforcement infrastructure funds.

-- OJP's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention provided
$3.25 million to the state of Louisiana through the Louisiana
Commission on Law Enforcement. The funds are helping communities
implement delinquency prevention and intervention programs, hold
juvenile offenders accountable, and support juvenile justice system
improvements.

-- To address crime victims' needs in New Orleans and the surrounding
community, the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) is implementing a
vertical victim assistance project for victims seen by the New Orleans
Police Department and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. Funding
to support this initiative totals nearly $190,000. The initiative will
work to ensure that these crime victims receive the same services and
support that are required by the Crime Victims Rights Act of 2004 for
federal victims of crime. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern
District of Louisiana has offered additional support to these local
law enforcement agencies to assist their efforts in addressing the
needs of violent crime victims in the city and surrounding community.
Funding from OVC is supporting the services of two victim-witness
coordinators who are based in the U.S. Attorney's Office and whose
services will assist local victims of violent crime.

Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force

-- The Department of Justice created the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task
Force, co-chaired by David Dugas, U.S. Attorney for the Middle
District of Louisiana, and the Assistant Attorney General for the
Criminal Division, to deter, investigate and prosecute
disaster-related federal crimes. Task Force members and partners
include Inspectors General (IGs) from participating agencies, federal
law enforcement, federal regulators, state and local law enforcement,
and community partners. The Task Force has indicted 764 individuals in
680 separate indictments in 41 judicial districts.

-- The Task Force's Command Center in Baton Rouge, La., has received and
referred nearly 16,000 complaints to various federal agencies
nationwide.

-- As part of the Task Force's efforts, the Department of Justice is
currently working with various IGs, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency and other agencies to facilitate database comparisons between
federal agencies to identify so-called "double dipping" by recipients.

United States Attorney's Office

-- Six prosecutors were detailed by the U.S. Department of Justice to the
U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana beginning
in the fall of 2006 for a six-month term, with an additional six
prosecutors who have since served two consecutive six-month terms, for
the purpose of providing critical assistance as the office expanded
its post-Katrina enforcement mission. Most recently, Attorney General
Mukasey authorized an additional six prosecutors to continue the
office's commitment. Last year, nine additional Assistant U.S.
Attorneys for the district were hired to assist with Katrina-related
fraud, violent crime prosecutions, and related prosecutions; an
additional prosecutor was hired to prosecute violent crime.

-- In 2006-07, the U.S. Attorney's Office charged more than 800
individuals with drug, violent crime, firearms and significant
immigration offenses, substantially bolstering the efforts of our
local partners to wage war on violent crimes and drug trafficking.

-- Within the last four weeks, two individuals began work at the U.S.
Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana as victim
assistance specialists. These highly trained, motivated and carefully
selected specialists have been specifically tasked to augment an
already highly-successful Victim/Witness Unit within that office and
working side by side with local district attorneys' offices and police
to assist victims of crime and help build a robust local
Victim/Witness Assistance Program.

-- The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana
continues to achieve success after success along with the FBI and
other law enforcement partners, in mounting a continued,
high-intensity campaign against public corruption, thus helping to
fuel an unprecedented demand for transparency and accountability in
government and to restore confidence in local and state government.

Southeast Louisiana Criminal Justice Recovery Task Force

-- The U.S. Attorney's Office was instrumental in the creation and the
maintenance of the Southeast Louisiana Criminal Justice Recovery Task
Force, a coalition of the principal local, state and federal
components to the regional criminal justice systems.

-- That task force, which remains active to this day, is responsible for
assisting its constituent state and local members (including law
enforcement offices, courts, corrections facilities, and public
defenders) who identify problems, obstacles and difficulties, craft
solutions, and obtain funding for the purpose of re-establishing full
criminal justice services for the people of the region.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

-- Throughout fiscal year 2007, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's
office was unable to prosecute many of the firearm violators arrested
by the New Orleans Police Department. In an effort to assist our local
partners, ATF adopted many of these cases for federal prosecution. In
doing so, the local ATF New Orleans enforcement groups referred
approximately 200 defendants to the U.S. Attorney's Office for federal
prosecution. These cases resulted in 109 convictions with an average
sentence of 135 months in federal prison.

-- As the District Attorney's Office has become better able to handle the
volume of firearms cases not appropriate for federal prosecution, ATF
has returned to a more balanced investigative strategy with greater
emphasis on violent criminal organizations and the small number of
violent predators committing a disproportionate amount of the violent
crime. So far in fiscal year 2008, ATF has referred approximately 63
such defendants to the U.S. Attorney's Office for prosecution.

-- In November 2007, ATF replaced the National Integrated Ballistics
Identification Network (NIBIN) equipment that was destroyed by
Hurricane Katrina. The equipment is temporarily housed in ATF space
until the New Orleans Police Department Crime Laboratory is rebuilt.
The backlog of approximately 400 shell casings to be entered was
eliminated by using firearms examiners on temporary assignment to New
Orleans from the ATF Laboratory. To date, there have been
approximately seven confirmed associations of crime guns to shell
casings and/or projectiles and there are an additional 45 associations
that are pending confirmation.

-- ATF has re-launched the Gun Hotline, which allows citizens to report
the illegal use or possession of firearms.

-- ATF identified a local federal firearms licensee as the single largest
supplier of crime guns to criminals in New Orleans. During a five-year
period, more than 2,300 crime guns from this dealer were recovered by
local law enforcement agencies in relation to crimes. Of the 2,300
guns recovered, more than 125 were related to murder investigations,
and more than 500 were related to crimes involving illegal drugs. As
a result of that investigation, the business was closed and three
individuals were prosecuted and currently await sentencing. The
inventory consisting of more than 1,100 firearms was seized for
forfeiture.

Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

-- Following Hurricane Katrina, DEA agents were temporarily provided
authority by the Attorney General to investigate and enforce all
federal criminal laws, in addition to federal drug laws. Beginning on
Jan. 21, 2007, DEA, in collaboration with the New Orleans Police
Department (NOPD) and U.S. Attorney's Office formulated a strategy
whereby the prosecution of cases involving violent offenders, firearms
and drugs could be facilitated directly through the federal system to
circumvent the revolving-door state judicial process.

-- DEA detailed 21 Special Agents to NOPD specialized units, including
the NOPD Crime Abatement Team, Special Operation Division (SOD) and
Major Narcotics Section. On May 5, 2007, manpower allocations were
amended to accommodate a change in strategy by the NOPD SOD, which
involved re-focusing on specific targets that were deemed the worst of
the worst through analysis of intelligence by DEA, ATF and NOPD.

-- DEA also formed a new enforcement group with existing NOPD personnel
to further assist the NOPD Major Narcotics Section and also pursue
Crime Stoppers tips and intelligence-driven targets. As a direct
result of DEA's partnership with NOPD in these various initiatives, a
total of 68 defendants have been indicted on federal charges in
investigations in which DEA led or participated. A total of 1,014
individuals have been arrested on various state violations and
authorities have seized 151 firearms, approximately 1 kilogram of
heroin, 3 1/2 kilograms of crack, 3 kilograms of cocaine powder, 16
kilograms of marijuana, 65 grams of methamphetamine, 3,404 dosage
units of MDMA, and $293,498.

-- DEA's New Orleans Field Division (NOFD) worked with NOPD and New
Orleans District Attorney's Office to educate and train personnel and
develop departmental policy and procedures to use DEA-supplied
narcotics field test kits. These field tests are now being accepted
by the District Attorney's Office as prima facie evidence that the
substances seized are controlled dangerous substances for initial
charging decisions. The NOFD also is assisting NOPD to stand up a
narcotics intelligence unit.

-- DEA has detailed a senior intelligence research specialist to work
with NOPD personnel within office space supplied by the Gulf Coast
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. This has afforded NOPD
on-the-job training and access to multiple databases and intelligence
resources they had never previously tapped. This effort is an NOPD-led
operation, with assistance and direction being provided by DEA. The
primary goal of this effort, titled the "Targeted Offenders Project,"
is violent crime reduction. It will identify individuals arrested by
NOPD for murder, armed robbery and illegal possession of firearms
since Hurricane Katrina who are violent repeat offenders eligible for
immediate federal prosecutions for weapon violations by ATF. The
project also aims to collect, analyze and collate all documentary
evidence seized from these suspects and their organizational
associates, where appropriate.

-- Finally, the project will identify emerging violent gangs,
conspiracies or organizations operating in the New Orleans
metropolitan area for targeted enforcement action. DEA's Divisional
Intelligence Group (DIG) also has sponsored federal law enforcement
analytical training in New Orleans for NOPD's Criminal Intelligence
Bureau (CIB), as well as other local and state law enforcement
agencies.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

-- Since February 2007, the FBI has worked with NOPD on 242 homicide
investigations, 93 of which have been solved. A total of 48 special
agents have been detailed to assist NOPD in this initiative.

-- Since August 2005, the FBI's violent crime program in New Orleans has
made: 573 criminal enterprise program arrests, 279 Organized Crime
Drug Enforcement Task Force/Gang Squad arrests, and 126 violent crime
arrests. The FBI created stand-alone "Katrina Squads" in both New
Orleans and Jackson, Miss., dedicated solely to combating the public
corruption and government fraud crime problem.

United States Marshals Service (USMS)

-- Since Katrina, USMS has added four "out of District" Deputy Marshals
and one administrative support specialist, who serve on a two-month
rotational basis to supplement the Crescent Star Fugitive Task Force,
which locates and arrests violent felony fugitives across 13 parishes
in the Eastern District of Louisiana.

-- Since its inception, Deputy U.S. Marshals working with the Attorney
General's "Operation Debris Removal" enforcement initiative have
accomplished 922 physical arrests and cleared more than 1,200
outstanding criminal warrants. Noteworthy apprehensions include:

5 fugitives profiled on "America's Most Wanted"

-- 5 USMS major cases
-- 53 New Orleans Police Department "Most Wanted Fugitives"
-- 21 Jefferson Parish "Top 100" fugitives
-- 3 St. Charles Parish "Most Wanted" fugitives
-- 42 murder suspects
-- 1 fugitive wanted for the murder of a police officer
-- 28 fugitives wanted for attempted murder
-- 48 fugitives wanted for rape
-- 150 fugitives wanted for sex offenses
-- In addition, 29 illegal firearms have been confiscated

-- The USMS created the Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force (GCRFTF),
which assists both federal and local agencies in locating and
arresting individuals wanted on fraud charges stemming from Hurricane
Katrina.

-- The GCRFTF completed an operation in conjunction with the Mississippi
Attorney General's Office, that targeted "contractors" wanted for
felony home repair fraud. More than 11 fugitives in five states have
been arrested, closing 15 felony fugitive warrants.

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

CONTACT: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs,
+1-202-514-2007, TDD, +1-202-514-1888

Web Site: http://www.usdoj.gov/

2008-05-19 18:35:41 0365749 PRNEWSWIRE