>>13918682

U.S. Attorney’s Office

Northern District of Ohio

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Wellington Man Sentenced to Nine Years for Transportation, Possession and Distribution of Child Pornography

William Schaffer amassed more than 2,000 images and videos of child pornography

Acting U.S. Attorney Bridget M. Brennan announced that William D. Schaffer, 53, of Wellington, was sentenced today to nine years imprisonment and five years of supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge Patricia A. Gaughan. Schaffer previously pleaded guilty to transportation of child pornography, possession of child pornography and receipt and distribution of visual depictions of real minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

As set out in court documents, law enforcement officers with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed a search warrant at the residence belonging to Schaffer on June 30, 2020, after receiving information from Yahoo! that an email address associated with Schaffer had been used to upload images of child pornography. Upon entering the residence, law enforcement officers encountered Schaffer and located his laptop, which was, at the time, displaying two images of child pornography.

After searching the rest of the residence, law enforcement officers seized numerous laptop computers, hard drives and iPhone devices belonging to Schaffer. A forensic search of the devices found in the residence and online accounts belonging to Schaffer showed that he had amassed a collection of 2,267 images and 257 videos of child pornography. In addition, investigators determined that Schaffer had used a mobile messaging application to trade images of child pornography with others and amassed a large collection in a cloud storage account.

This investigation was conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Carol M. Skutnik.

U.S. Attorney’s Office

District of New Jersey

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

USPS Mail Carrier Arraigned for Conspiring to Possess with Intent to Distribute Controlled Substances, Receiving Bribes, and Conspiring to Defraud United States

NEWARK, N.J. – A U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier was arraigned today on charges of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute controlled substances, receiving bribes as a public official, and conspiring to defraud the United States, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig announced.

Emerson Pavilus, 46, of Union, New Jersey, was charged May 24, 2021, in a three-count indictment with conspiring to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana, receiving bribes as a public official, and conspiring to defraud the United States.

According to documents filed in this case:

Pavilus was a mail carrier at the USPS Post Office in Flanders, New Jersey. From 2015 through June 2020, Pavilus received cash payments from at least two individuals in exchange for helping them to ship controlled substances, including cocaine and marijuana, and other illicit materials through the mail. Among other things, Pavilus provided his conspirators with addresses in Flanders to which parcels could be shipped, intercepted those parcels from the mail stream, and personally delivered those parcels to conspirators at addresses other than those listed on the parcels.

The narcotics offense carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison, a maximum potential penalty of 40 years in prison, and a maximum fine of $5 million. The bribery charge is punishable by a maximum potential penalty of 15 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain from the offense, or three times the monetary equivalent of the bribe amount, whichever is greatest. The conspiracy to defraud the United States charge carries a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain from the offense, whichever is greater.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/usps-mail-carrier-arraigned-conspiring-possess-intent-distribute-controlled-substances

U.S. Attorney’s Office

Southern District of New York

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Senior Nasa Scientist Sentenced To Prison For Making False Statements Related To Chinese Thousand Talents Program Participation And Professorship

Audrey Strauss, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (“USAO”), announced that MEYYA MEYYAPPAN, a senior National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”) scientist, was sentenced today to 30 days in prison for making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), NASA’s Office of Inspector General (“NASA OIG”), and the USAO. MEYYAPPAN pled guilty on January 13, 2021, before U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel, who also imposed today’s sentence.

U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “As a senior NASA scientist with access to sensitive and confidential U.S. government technologies and intellectual property, Meyya Meyyappan was understandably subject to restrictions regarding outside employment and compensation. When questioned by the FBI and NASA, Meyyappan gave false statements regarding his employment by a Chinese government-funded program that recruited individuals with access to foreign technologies and intellectual property. The privilege of access to cutting edge U.S. technologies and intellectual property comes with the critical responsibility of protecting their secrecy. Meyyappan betrayed that trust, by failing to disclose his foreign activities and then compounding his mistakes by lying to the FBI and NASA. He has now been sentenced to time in federal prison for his unlawful conduct.”

According to the allegations in the Information and other proceedings in this case:

From in or about 1996 through in or about 2021, MEYYAPPAN was employed by NASA, an independent U.S. government agency responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Beginning in or about 2006, MEYYAPPAN was the Chief Scientist, Exploration Technology at the Center for Nanotechnology, at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Silicon Valley, California.

In his position at NASA, MEYYAPPAN was subject to certain statutory, regulatory, and agency restrictions and reporting requirements regarding, among other things, outside employment, travel, and compensation. Notwithstanding these prohibitions, MEYYAPPAN participated in China’s Thousand Talents Program, a program established by the Chinese government to recruit individuals with access to or knowledge of foreign technology or intellectual property, and held professorships at universities in China, South Korea, and Japan, and failed to disclose these associations and positions to NASA and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

On or about October 27, 2020, MEYYAPPAN was interviewed by the FBI, NASA OIG, and the USAO, in New York, New York. During that proffer session, MEYYAPPAN falsely stated, among other things, that he was not a member of the Thousand Talents Program and that he did not hold a professorship at a Chinese university. In truth and in fact, MEYYAPPAN was a member of the Thousand Talents Program and held a professorship at a Chinese university, funded by the Chinese government.

• • *

MEYYAPPAN, 66, of Pacifica, California was also ordered to pay a fine of $ 100,000.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/senior-nasa-scientist-sentenced-prison-making-false-statements-related-chinese-thousand

https://oig.justice.gov/reports/audit-us-marshals-service-judicial-security-activities

(U) Conclusion and Recommendations

(U//LES) USMS officials have identified the need for improvements to its protective intelligence and threat identification capabilities, without which the USMS’s ability to ensure the safety of USMS-protected persons may be adversely impacted. However, we found that competing agency priorities have impeded the USMS’s ability to fund the judicial security enhancements that it identified. In addition, we found that the HIDS program has not kept pace with modern home security technology, that the rate of participation among judges eligible for home security equipment offered under the HIDS program is , and that the use of the equipment by participating judges is . Because the USMS could not identify the reasons for these

participating and usage rates, we believe the USMS should solicit input from eligible judges to determine how it can improve participation and usage, and whether including additional commonly available products would better meet the needs of participating federal judges. Finally, the USMS needs to improve the personal security training provided to judiciary members to ensure they are equipped with the proper knowledge of how to maximize their security awareness and help ensure their safety. As a result, we make eight recommendations to improve the USMS’s judicial security activities.

(U) We

recommend that the USMS:

1. (U) Review OPI’s Protective Intelligence Enterprise Reformation Plan and protective intelligence capabilities at other DOJ components such as the FBI and determine and pursue the actions necessary to achieve desired threat identification, assessment, and mitigation capabilities.

1. (U) Assess the status and training requirements of the DTI position to determine if it meets the needs of the judicial security program and make any necessary adjustments to ensure an adequate number of DTIs are dedicated on a full-time basis to this function, are appropriately trained, and are operational.

1. (U) Update the policies and standard operating procedures guiding its protective intelligence and threat assessment to ensure they align with approved practices.

1. (U) Establish policy guiding its proactive threat identification practices.

1. (U//LES) Solicit input from judges eligible to participate in the HIDS program to determine what home security features they want made available to them, and determine the feasibility of incorporating those features into the next HIDS contract requirements.

1. (U) Explore options for upgrading current and future intrusion detection equipment to address present day security threats, as well as the needs of its users.

1. (U) Use its Publication 94 to develop a standard agenda of key topics for required annual security briefings to USMS-protected persons and revise its Judicial Security Policy Directive to require that these topics be briefed annually to each individual under its protection.

1. (U) Revise its Judicial Security Policy Directive to require districts to use Form USM-50Z to track completion of required annual security briefings to USMS-protected persons and retain those records, by fiscal year, for a period of at least 3 years.

I do feel it is also important to address one more time the crisis at

the border and the variety of bad things happening because of that

crisis and not caring like we did only a few months ago as to who

crosses the border.

I don't think we have spent enough time addressing the drug crisis in America. It has been around so long, it becomes boring even to think about it. Except recently, we hit the point at which 90,000 Americans had died of drug overdoses in a 12-month period.

When I talk to people at the border or my local drug enforcement

administration, they both agree that this is in part happening because more drugs are coming across the border. In part, it is predictable that more drugs are coming across the border because it is easier to get across the border. More people are crossing the border. But even more so, as marijuana becomes legalized in the country, it is no longer profitable to bring marijuana across the southern border.

I heard an anecdote of a significant amount of marijuana coming

across the border, and the people who owned it couldn't sell it.

Because the marijuana produced by the now-legalized agriculture

operations in the United States–not surprisingly, because we now do

genetic engineering, that sort of thing–the marijuana produced in the

United States in States like Colorado and Washington is superior to the marijuana brought across the Mexican border.

Well, if the Mexican drug cartels cannot make money selling marijuana or bringing marijuana across the border, how are they going to make it up? They are going to make it up by bringing more and more dangerous drugs–meth, cocaine, heroin, but above all, fentanyl. They are going to bring more and more fentanyl across the southern border. Now, we have 90,000 deaths in this country in 1 year.

A little bit of my district touches Milwaukee County, not a huge

county, by nationwide standards, about a million people. Last year, 540 people died of drug overdoses in Milwaukee County. There were about 200 murders, which is the all-time record, and everybody couldn't believe 200 murders. There were over 500 illegal overdoses.

Now, what do we do about that? Well, clearly, one of the things we

have to do is we have to prevent these drugs from coming into the

country in the first place. It is disappointing that we put the

security of the border on the back burner and think of excuses not to

deal with it.

But in addition to thinking of all the people running across the

border, take a minute to think about the 90,000 people, many very young people, dying primarily of fentanyl but also other illegal drug

overdoses, and ask yourself: What is this body going to do to stop it?

Of course, other problems are at the border. We have gone from

checking in or touching about 17,000 people a month to 180,000 people a month. As far as got-aways, people who aren't even checked in, our Border Patrol estimates we have gone from about 6,000 this time last year to about 30,000 now–just massive increases.

I would guess between got-aways and people who are checked into the country, we are looking at 60,000 or 70,000 a month instead of under 10,000 a month at this time last year. It is truly a crisis.

Quite frankly, this body ought to be doing nothing else but dealing with that crisis until it is solved.

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2021/6/15/house-section/article/h2812-1?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Fentanyl%22%5D%7D&s=2&r=2

>>13918939

We also have a crisis at the southern border. There is a lot

happening in America today. Half a million illegal immigrants have

crossed our border since Joe Biden took the oath of office to become President of the United States. Now, these are just the illegal immigrants whom we know about.

Since Joe Biden became President, we have seized over 3,200 pounds of fentanyl at our southern border. That is enough fentanyl to kill every man, woman, and child living in America today. That is just one category of drugs, and these are the drugs that we know about. Just imagine what has come into the country that we don't know about.

Yet, despite the critics and the crisis–President Biden has created

a crisis, and Democrats, certainly in this body, refuse to raise a

finger to bring the crisis to an end. Instead, it seems that the

Democrats are focused on only one thing and one thing alone, and that is seizing more power.

We are told Democrats are going to bring a bill to the floor next

week on election takeover in America. Now, the majority leader already knows that this bill cannot pass the U.S. Senate. It will not pass because he doesn't even have the support for the votes in his own caucus, and that is because the bill is radical, it is extreme, it is

dangerous, and it is scary. It is actually a Federal takeover of

elections in America.

He says that he normally prefers to move migrants in smaller groups. “The most I can sneak across at a time is eight or seven or five. Big groups are the ones that turn themselves in” to Border Patrol. These asylum seekers, mostly minors, are not as profitable as those who pay to reach Houston, he says. “Plenty of kids arrive alone. Right now we have a boy of one year to turn in to Border Patrol,” he says, causing Lerma’s jaw to drop. “The location of his family [in the U.S.] is written on his diaper,” he adds. The practice of giving children so young over to smugglers seems to trouble the coyote boss as much as it did Mother Carmona. “It’s a pretty ugly thing,” he says, “to send your kid alone to the world that is the border.”

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/06/the-coyote-cartel-and-migrant-passage.html

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/06/16/texas-dedicates-250-million-to-build-border-wall/