Houston Resident Pleads Guilty to Charges of Intellectual Property Theft

HOUSTON—Wen-Long Huang, aka Joseph W. Huang, 62, a U.S. Citizen originally from Taiwan now residing in Houston, has pleaded guilty to theft of trade secrets, United States Attorney Kenneth Magidson announced today. Huang was charged by criminal information on March 28, 2012. He surrendered and made his initial appearance two weeks later.

Today, Huang admitted he illegally copied and downloaded intellectual property, specifically product data sheets, belonging to his employer, Jet Products LLC, in an effort to economically benefit himself. Jet Products is a Houston-based company that develops and manufactures environmentally friendly building products to be used in residential and commercial construction.

United States District Judge Ewing Werlein, Jr., who accepted the guilty plea, has set sentencing for July 27, 2012. Huang was permitted to remain on bond pending that hearing, at which time he faces up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI-Cyber Crimes Unit and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Craig Feazel.

West Branch Man Sentenced on Child Pornography Charge

A man who possessed child pornography was sentenced April 26, 2012 to 97 months in federal prison.

Timothy Wilker, age 43, of West Branch, Iowa, received the sentence after a January 17, 2012 guilty plea to one count of possessing child pornography. At the guilty plea, Wilker admitted that, in May 2009, he knowingly possessed over 8,000 images and over 275 videos of child pornography.

Wilker was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade. Wilker was sentenced to 97 months’ imprisonment and fined $10,000. A special assessment of $100 was imposed, and Wilker must also serve a 10-year term of supervised release. He must comply with all sex offender registration and public notification requirements.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Cedar County Sheriff’s Office, the West Branch Police Department, and the Iowa City Police Department.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit Projectsafechildhood.gov.

Security Threat Assessment Conference

Iona College to Present Second Conference On Security Threat Assessment, May 17, 2012

Law Enforcement Experts to Address Domestic Terrorism and Other Security Threats at Day-Long Session for Practitioners

DISCOUNT RATE FOR FIRST RESPONDERS, CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRACTITIONERS, AND STUDENTS - Undergraduate and Graduate

New Rochelle, NY (April 2012) Top local, state and federal law enforcement experts will participate in Iona College’s Second Annual Conference on Security Threat Assessment from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, Thursday, May 17th at the college’s Christopher J. Murphy Auditorium, 715 North Avenue, New Rochelle.

Among the topics that will be addressed are:

• Security Threat Assessment and Its Significance Today

• Fraud & Money Laundering: Detecting the Links in the Criminal Cycle

• Strategies for Crisis Management

• Threat Assessment Issues for College Campuses, including Clery Compliance and Dating Violence

• Cyber-crime and Terrorism

• Security Threat Issues in the Classroom for K-12 for educators and administrators

• Community-wide Approaches to Crisis Management and Preparedness

This year, we will be holding specific break-out groups to give participants a more intimate setting with practitioners on special concerns within their own fields regarding security threat assessment issues. Topics include: First response measures and special issues for campus security, domestic and dating issues for educators and medical practitioner, security threats for administrators at K-12 schools, radicalization of youth, and money laundering and the impact on terrorist financing. All sessions, including break-out groups will be taught by leaders in the field of security threat assessment and crisis management.

To sign up for break-out groups or for more information, please email Dr. Cathryn Lavery at Clavery@iona.edu or call (914) 633-2597.

FBI Top Stories: K9 Comfort

Helping Victims of Crime, Therapy Dog Program a First for the Bureau

Rachel Pierce is a victim specialist in our Office for Victim Assistance. Her partner is an 8-year-old German Shepherd/Siberian Husky mix, and together they form a unique and remarkable team.

The FBI uses a variety of working dogs, highly capable canines that can sniff out drugs and bombs, bolster security, and alert their handlers when they pick up the scent of blood. But Dolce, with his shimmering yellow coat and steel blue eyes, is the Bureau’s one and only therapy dog.

The job of a victim specialist, or VS, is to ensure that victims receive the rights they are entitled to under federal law and the assistance they need to cope with crime. With his lovable personality, Dolce excels at comforting crime victims and their families. The story of how he became a VS—of the K9 variety—is a story in itself.

Pierce, a psychologist who worked for the Department of Defense and law enforcement before joining the Bureau about five years ago, suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic inflammatory disease whose symptoms can be debilitating when they strike. In 2004, she went to a local shelter looking for a puppy she could train to be a service dog. That’s where she found Dolce.

“I thought it would be nice to have a dog that did some things around the house for me when my symptoms flared up,” she said. “There are days I can’t move or even lift a sheet.”

After extensive service dog training, Dolce learned how to turn light switches on and off, load laundry in the washing machine, and even retrieve drinks from the refrigerator. “He is a very good service dog,” said Pierce, who is based in our Nashville Resident Agency. “But service dogs are not supposed to interact with the public.”

That was a problem, because Dolce loves people. Pierce soon realized that Dolce’s intelligence and temperament would make him a terrific therapy dog. She knew from her military experience that the Army has a successful therapy dog program, and she set out to introduce a something similar at the FBI.

On her own, Pierce undertook an extensive training regimen with Dolce, and he passed registration exams given by Pet Partners and other organizations. In 2009, after spending many volunteer hours taking Dolce to nursing homes, camps for grieving children, and other places that use therapy dogs, Pierce’s proposal for the K9-Assisted Victim Assistance Program was approved by the FBI and adopted as a pilot program.

Since then, she and Dolce have had a very positive impact, comforting victims and their families in murder cases, kidnappings, and bank robberies, where Dolce’s presence is a calming influence on tellers who minutes before may have had a gun pointed in their faces.

Studies have shown that the presence of an animal in a stressful situation can produce a calming effect, Pierce said. “It can lower blood pressure and make you feel more relaxed.” In the immediate aftermath of a bank robbery, for example, a calm witness can better relay information about the crime to investigators.

“We have worked a lot of cases together,” Pierce said, “helping victims of child pornography and even white-collar crime, where senior citizens lost their life savings to investment scam artists. Dolce has helped a lot of people,” she added. “I am so proud of him for all the lives he has touched in a positive way.”

FBI Director’s Award

Last year, Rachel Pierce and Dolce received the FBI Director’s Award for Excellence for “distinguished service for assisting victims of crime.” Pierce was recognized for creating and implementing the therapy dog program—the first of its kind for the Bureau.

“It was an honor to get the award,” said Pierce, who would like to see the therapy dog program expanded to other FBI offices. “I know a lot of other victim specialists around the country who would be interested in training and working with a therapy dog. I would love to see that happen.”

Meanwhile, Pierce and Dolce work cases together, and in her spare time Pierce is training her new puppy, Kevlar. “Dolce has to retire someday,” she said. “I hope it works out that Kevlar will take his place.”

2 Illinois women plead guilty to selling counterfeit goods

More than $1 million fake brand name purses, wallets, sunglasses sold; MSRP of more than $1.6 million

PEORIA, Ill. — Two Central Illinois women have pleaded guilty of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods. The two woman conducted business as "The Purse Lady" and sold counterfeit items. They each face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. This investigation is being conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Bloomington (Ill.) Police Department.

Jannette Grant, 51, of Bloomington, Ill., and Kimberly Nein, 50, of Argenta, Ill., waived indictment and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods. Both entered their guilty pleas before U.S. District Judge Joe Billy McDade in Peoria. Sentencing has been scheduled for Aug. 13, 2012.

According to court documents, Grant and Nein admitted to operating a business known as The Purse Lady, which offered items for sale that falsely bore trademarks of Coach, Kate Spade, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel, Dooney & Bourke, Prada, Tiffany & Co. and others. Goods were sold throughout central Illinois, including at various businesses; at home parties, also known as "purse parties;" through the mail; and at a warehouse in Argenta owned by Nein.

Grant and Nein admitted that they traveled to Chicago and New York regularly to purchase inventory. According to court documents, Grant and Nein advertised their items for sale as "replica/knockoff" and stated that all references to brands were for "entertainment and novelty purposes only" and "these companies are not affiliated with us in any way."

During search warrants executed by HSI special agents May 12, 2011, at Grant's home and at Nein's warehouse in Argenta, special agents recovered more than 15,000 counterfeit items with an estimated manufacturer's suggested retail price of nearly $1.6 million. The items included 2,000 purses, 900 wallets, 400 sunglasses, 10,900 emblems and medallions, and other items. Further, HSI special agents recovered various items that Grant surrendered, including a 2008 Dodge Caravan, a 2003 BMW and $18,052 in currency at her home. Special agents have also recovered $4,487 from the business' bank account and $80,000 held in a safe deposit box. Grant has also agreed to forfeit $47,522, the amount Grant had paid on two homes in Bloomington, in lieu of forfeiture of real estate.

As the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, HSI plays a leading role in targeting criminal organizations responsible for producing, smuggling and distributing counterfeit products. HSI focuses not only on keeping counterfeit products off our streets, but also on dismantling the criminal organizations behind such illicit activity.

HSI manages the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) in Washington. The IPR Center is one of the U.S. government's key weapons in the fight against criminal counterfeiting and piracy. As a task force, the IPR Center uses the expertise of its 20 member agencies to share information, develop initiatives, coordinate enforcement actions and conduct investigations related to IP theft. Through this strategic interagency partnership, the IPR Center protects the public's health and safety, the U.S. economy and the war fighters.

To report IP theft or to learn more about the HSI-led IPR Center, visit IPRCenter.gov.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Darilynn J. Knauss, Central District of Illinois, is prosecuting this case on behalf of the U.S. government.

CBP U.S. Border Patrol Agents Apprehend Felon

Prior Convictions include Robbery

Tucson, Ariz. – A 30-year-old male from Mexico City, Mexico, apprehended by Naco Station Border Patrol agents in June 2011 near Naco, Ariz., was sentenced to 33 months of confinement on April 19, 2012.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted Jose Fernando Calderon-Rodriguez following his 2011 apprehension for attempting to illegally re-enter the United States. During processing at the Naco Station, agents using the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) learned Calderon-Rodriguez was convicted in California in 2005 for robbery and sentenced to four years in prison.

Following the Border Patrol’s initial processing, the case was submitted to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for re-entry of an aggravated felon. Calderon-Rodriguez will be formally removed from the U.S. following his 33-month incarceration and is now banned for life from any legalization process.

All illegal immigrants apprehended by the Border Patrol undergo criminal history checks using IAFIS. This vital tool accesses criminal records throughout the United States, enabling agents to quickly identify violent criminals and wanted persons.

As part of a targeted enforcement strategy, the Tucson Sector places individuals into impact programs designed to influence their decision not to commit a subsequent illegal entry. One impact program involves individuals with prior criminal convictions being prosecuted in federal court.

Customs and Border Protection welcomes assistance from the community. Citizens can report suspicious activity and remain anonymous by calling the Border Patrol at (877) 872-7435 toll free.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.