Office Of Justice Programs Awards More Than $15 Million To Improve Sex Offender Registration, Increase Public Safety

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking, which is part of the Office of Justice Programs, today announced more than $15 million in grant awards to implement and enhance sex offender registration and management throughout the 50 states and District of Columbia, as well as in tribal communities and U.S. territories.

A seamless and effective sex offender registration and notification system is essential to any community and a critical safeguard in protecting citizens,” said Dawn Doran, the SMART Office’s Acting Director. “These awards give states, tribes and territories resources to bolster their public safety infrastructure, assess risk and combat sexual violence in their jurisdictions.”

More than $12 million will be used to assist jurisdictions with meeting and maintaining the requirements of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), Title I of the Adam Walsh Act. Jurisdictions will use funds to develop and enhance their sex offender registration systems in order to better track and monitor sex offenders, and to reduce violent crime and improve public safety. The Adam Walsh Act, signed into law on July 27, 2006, is designed to protect children and adults from child exploitation and violent crime, prevent child abuse and child pornography, promote internet safety and honor the memory of Adam Walsh and other crime victims.

Another $1 million will be used to provide training and technical assistance to help tribal jurisdictions enhance their implementation of SORNA’s requirements, and develop best practices to improve public safety in Indian country. Another $1 million will fund the development or validation of an assessment tool for sex offenders in Indian country.

The SMART Office is also supporting the Applying Circles of Support and Accountability in Indian Country training and technical assistance program. This $500,000 award will help bolster criminal justice systems in tribal communities that have already substantially implemented SORNA. The grant will help tribes develop strategies for managing sex offenders by encouraging the entire tribal community to aid in the management of sex offenders. The program’s ultimate goal is to enhance the tribe’s infrastructure for monitoring sex offenders and to better protect communities from sexual violence.

An additional $853,266 in funding was awarded to support maintenance, operations and technological improvements for the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website, which allows the public to search for registered sex offenders on a national scale by linking state, territorial and tribal public registry websites.

Moore County Man Charged in Fourteen-Count Dogfighting Indictment

Today a federal magistrate judge unsealed a superseding indictment charging Brexton Redell Lloyd, 54, of Eagle Springs, with one count of conspiracy and thirteen counts of violating the animal fighting prohibitions of the federal Animal Welfare Act, announced Acting United States Attorney Sandra J. Hairston for the Middle District of North Carolina, and Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood for the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

The charges returned today pertain to pit bull-type dogs allegedly kept by Lloyd at his residence in Eagle Springs. The Defendant allegedly possessed and trained the dogs for fighting ventures and conspiring to commit these acts throughout the United States. The dogs were seized by federal authorities in a search warrant executed in March 2017.

This case is part of Operation Grand Champion, a coordinated effort across numerous federal judicial districts to combat organized dog fighting. The phrase “Grand Champion” is used by dog fighters to refer to a dog with more than five dog-fighting “victories.” To date, approximately one hundred dogs have been rescued as part of Operation Grand Champion, and either surrendered or forfeited to the government.

The federal Animal Welfare Act makes it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison to knowingly sell, buy, possess, train, transport, deliver, or receive any animal, including dogs, for purposes of having the animal participate in an animal fighting venture. Under federal law, an animal fighting venture means “any event, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, that involves a fight conducted or to be conducted between at least two animals for purposes of sport, wagering, or entertainment.”

This part of Operation Grand Champion was investigated by the United States Department of Agriculture, Office of the Inspector General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in coordination with the Department of Justice, with assistance from the North Carolina State Highway Patrol and the Moore County Sheriff’s Office.

The government is represented by Assistant United States Attorney JoAnna G. McFadden of the Middle District of North Carolina and Trial Attorney Erica Pencak of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section, Environment and Natural Resources Division. The Humane Society of the United States assisted with the care of the dogs seized by federal law enforcement.

An indictment is an allegation based upon a finding of probable cause by a grand jury. A defendant is

If convicted, the defendant faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine per count. The investigation is ongoing.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco Delivers Remarks Following Regional Ministerial on Joint Efforts to Combat Transnational Organized Crime

Miami, FL

~ Friday, September 29, 2017

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for being here. Over the last six months and culminating this morning, prosecutors from the United States, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala filed charges against over 3,800 MS-13 and 18th Street gang members, including essentially every leader of MS-13 in El Salvador. I’ll let Attorneys General Douglas Melendez, Thelma Aldana, and Oscar Chinchilla discuss their specific results in a moment, but I wanted to share with you the overall impact of our joint efforts to coordinate against the gangs which pose a particular threat to the United States.

Today marks the six-month anniversary of the commitment U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his counterparts made at a Ministerial in Washington, D.C. this past March. Our announcement today concerns Operation Regional Shield, which is the result of that commitment. Operation Regional Shield is a direct response to our government’s goals to dismantle transnational criminal networks and increase international cooperation to prevent the spread of transnational organized crime to the United States. Increasingly, transnational organized crime—and its attendant violence—touches U.S communities, leaving devastation in its wake.  Horrific acts of violence attributable to gangs plague our communities.  As Attorney General Sessions recently stated, gangs like MS-13 represent one of the gravest threats to American safety. The Department of Justice is therefore committed to combatting, disrupting, and dismantling MS-13 through aggressive investigations and prosecutions, in coordination with our interagency and international partners.

As part of that effort, U.S. prosecutors have brought charges in numerous jurisdictions, including traditional MS-13 strongholds such as Los Angeles, Maryland and New York, as well as new areas into which the gang has expanded and presents a growing threat, such as Columbus, Ohio. Every U.S. prosecution has ties to the Northern Triangle, demonstrating the importance of a regional strategy and coordination between the four countries most affected by MS-13.

The Justice Department’s regional strategy to combat transnational organized crime includes an operational component through which the FBI, the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gangs Section, and other Department components work in close coordination with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate and prosecute gang members. To ensure that transnational criminals face justice, the Department routinely collaborates with our foreign counterparts to obtain critical evidence and secure extradition.  Finally, our strategy includes a capacity building component led by our Office of Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training. Through this office, the Department works with our Central American counterparts to increase their ability to investigate and prosecute criminal groups before their criminal activities reach the United States.  All of these components are mutually reinforcing.

The Justice Department currently has five prosecutors deployed in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, who, together with our DHS partners and the FBI, focus on gangs, cartels, financial crimes, public corruption, and other transnational criminal activities.  The work of our personnel in the region has been instrumental in our regional fight against transnational crime, but these successes against gangs would not have been possible without the strong partnerships we have with the Attorneys General with me today. Attorneys General Aldana, Chinchilla, and Melendez are each incredible allies who have demonstrated time and again their commitment to the rule of law in their countries. I wish to publicly thank them here today for their tireless dedication to the security of their countries and our region as a whole, and I want to reiterate to them, and to you, that they have in the Department of Justice a strong, willing, and committed partner in the fight against crime.