Natural gas explosion destroys part of Motel 6 in Washington after manager evacuates guests. 1 Cascade Gas employee critically injured in the blast.

AUGUST 19, 2015

SEATTLE, WASINGTON (AP) — 

A powerful explosion tore through a Washington motel, critically injuring a gas company worker and knocking back firefighters just minutes after the manager evacuated the building because she could smell and hear a gas leak.


Two people were unaccounted for after the explosion, but no bodies were found in the debris, Bremerton Fire Chief Al Duke said Wednesday.

"They're not here," Duke said, adding he was almost certain the missing guests were not caught in the explosion. Cadaver dogs went through the building two or three times and found no evidence of bodies. Plus, investigators pinged the cellphones of the missing people, and they showed up "way south of the area," Duke said.

He said the fast action of the Motel 6 manager and the people who listened to the fire alarm helped ensure the explosion Tuesday night was not a bigger tragedy.

About 10 people were staying in the 16 rooms that were destroyed, Duke said. More than 60 guests were staying at the hotel, but they may not have been in the building at the time of the blast.

"People have been there when you hear an alarm go off and you don't do anything. We see that a lot," Duke said. "The one time that you should have gotten out, and you didn't, it might turn out bad."


 
Firefighters hose down the debris field from the collapsed east side of the Bremerton Motel 6, Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The blast on the west side of Puget Sound, across from Seattle, ripped off a 16-room section of the hotel that collapsed in a pile of rubble and burned for hours. Some firefighters at the scene were blown back 20 feet by the force, and others pulled smoldering debris from the building to help contain the fire, Bremerton Fire Capt. John Hawkins said at a Wednesday news conference.

"The management did a really good job of getting the alarm in right away and getting the evacuation started," Police Chief Steve Strachan said.

Acting manager Tonya Hinds said in a telephone interview that a passer-by came into her office to say a gas line was leaking at the back of the building. Hinds — a former volunteer firefighter — said she went outside and saw that the leaking line was a big one "with a lot of gas."

"I pulled the alarm and started corralling people away from the building," Hinds said. "I wanted to make sure all my guests were out."

The alarm came in just before 8 p.m., and the fire department and two Cascade Gas employees responded. The explosion came half an hour later, critically injuring one of the workers, who was flown to a Seattle hospital, Strachan said.


 
Map locates Bremerton, Washington, where a gas explosion partially demolished a Motel 6.

"Our prayers go out to his family. It could have been worse," an emotional Duke said at a news conference Wednesday.

Two firefighters were injured in the blast, but both were home Wednesday and in good condition, Hawkins said. One firefighter suffered bruised ribs, and the other had a concussion, Duke said.

Hinds, manager of the three-story motel that reopened last fall after an extensive remodel, said a guest reported seeing someone jump out a window and land on or near the gas line just before the leak.

"We're still checking on that. Whether they did or didn't go out that way, we have detectives working on that as we speak," Chief Strachan said.

Because local officials said the gas meter likely was damaged just prior to the leak, the National Transportation Safety Board has called back its investigators because it would no longer fall under its jurisdiction to investigate.

CROOKS CAUGHT, CONVICTED: Yaroslav Proshak, aka Steven Proshak, 47, of Valley Village, California and Others Found Guilty in Medicare Fraud Conspiracy

Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Ambulance Company Owner, Operator and Managers Found Guilty in Medicare Fraud Conspiracy


A federal jury in Los Angeles late yesterday convicted the former owner, operator and managers of a Southern California ambulance company of health care fraud charges in connection with a Medicare fraud scheme of at least $2.4 million.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker of the Central District of California, Acting Special Agent in Charge Steve Ryan of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (HHS-OIG) Los Angeles Region and Assistant Director in Charge David Bowdich of the FBI’s Los Angeles Division made the announcement.

Yaroslav Proshak, aka Steven Proshak, 47, of Valley Village, California; Emilia Zverev, 58, of Van Nuys, California; and Sharetta Michelle Wallace, 37, of Inglewood, California, each were convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and five counts of health care fraud following a two-week trial. Proshak’s sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 24, 2015, and Zverev’s and Wallace’s sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 30, 2015, all before U.S. District Judge S. James Otero of the Central District of California, who presided over the trial.

Proshak owned and operated ProMed Medical Transportation, an ambulance transportation company in the greater Los Angeles area that provided non-emergency ambulance transportation services to Medicare beneficiaries, many of whom were dialysis patients. Zverev was the billing manager, and Wallace supervised ProMed’s emergency medical technicians (EMTs).

The evidence at trial demonstrated that, between May 2008, and October 2010, the defendants conspired to bill Medicare for ambulance transportation services for individuals whom the defendants knew did not need such services. In addition, the evidence showed that the defendants instructed EMTs who worked at ProMed to conceal the true medical conditions of patients they were transporting by altering requisite paperwork and creating fraudulent documents to justify the transportation services.

According to evidence admitted at trial, during the course of the conspiracy, ProMed submitted at least $2.4 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for medically unnecessary transportation services. Medicare paid at least $1.2 million of those claims.

The case was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, supervised by the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. The case was investigated by the FBI and HHS-OIG. The case was prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Blanca Quintero, Fred Medick and Ritesh Srivastava of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.

Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, now operating in nine cities across the country, has charged more than 2,300 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $7 billion. In addition, HHS’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with HHS-OIG, is taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.

To learn more about the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), go to: www.stopmedicarefraud.gov.

Mississippi Phosphates Corp. (MPC) Pleads Guilty to Clean Water Act Violation and Agrees to Transfer 320 Acres to Grand Bay National Estuary

Wednesday, August 19, 2015 

Mississippi Phosphates Corp. Pleads Guilty to Clean Water Act Violation and Agrees to Transfer 320 Acres to Grand Bay National Estuary


Mississippi Phosphates Corp. (MPC), a Mississippi corporation which owned and operated a fertilizer manufacturing facility located on Bayou Casotte in Pascagoula, Mississippi, pleaded guilty today to a felony information charging the company with a criminal violation of the Clean Water Act, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sam Hirsch of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Davis for the Southern District of Mississippi.

As part of the guilty plea, MPC admitted discharging more than 38 million gallons of acidic wastewater in August 2013. The discharge contained pollutants in amounts greatly exceeding MPC’s permit limits, resulting in the death of more than 47,000 fish and the closing of Bayou Casotte. MPC also admitted that, in February 2014, MPC discharged oily wastewater from an open gate on a storm water culvert into Bayou Casotte, creating an oily sheen that extended approximately one mile down the bayou from MPC.

MPC entered its guilty plea before Chief Judge Louis Guirola Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. Because MPC is in bankruptcy and is obligated to assist in funding the estimated $120 million cleanup of its site, the court accepted the parties’ agreement for MPCto transfer 320 acres of property near to its Pascagoula plant to become a part of the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, which is managed by the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources as part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Estuarine Research Reserve System.

“With this plea, Mississippi Phosphates has accepted responsibility for having discharged millions of gallons of industrial pollutants that killed tens of thousands of fish, damaged marine habitats and polluted recreational waterways,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hirsch. “Mississippi Phosphates has acknowledged its misconduct and has been sentenced to transfer property it owns that is adjacent to the Grand Bay National Estuary, thus protecting and potentially rehabilitating a vital marine resource that this company’s pollutant discharges had severely damaged.”

“When operators break the law, they can harm natural resources and communities such as those around Bayou Casotte and neighboring waterways,” Acting Special Agent in Charge said Andy Castro of EPA’s criminal enforcement program in Mississippi. “Over the years, state, local and federal governments have spent billions of dollars restoring the delicate Gulf Coast ecosystem. Illegally discharged wastewater compromises that hard work. EPA will continue to work with its law enforcement partners to hold companies fully accountable for their conduct, and to ensure they comply with laws that protect the public and from harm.”

As the felony information describes, when it was in full production, MPC manufactured diammonium phosphate fertilizers from phosphate rock which it received by ship and rail and from sulphur which was piped to its facility from a neighboring oil refinery. In its production of fertilizer, MPC generated a variety of pollutants and hazardous wastes. MPC has been regulated under a number of environmental statutes that govern the production, storage and release of a variety of air and water pollutants as well as hazardous wastes. In the manufacturing process, strong acids and ammonia were produced. If improperly discharged, acids and ammonia can be highly toxic to fish and to other forms of marine life. MPC was obligated to comply with permits issued by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) under the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as prescribed by the Clean Water Act. These permits regulated the storage and discharge of MPC’s stormwater and wastewater, prescribing the circumstances under which they could be discharged into Bayou Casotte and limiting the concentration and quantity of the pollutants they could contain.

As detailed in the felony information, since January 2000, MPC has been cited by MDEQ in numerous notices for hundreds of violations of its Clean Water Act permit for discharging wastewater exceeding its pollutant limits. MPC was also cited for its failure to maintain adequate wastewater storage capacity, its discharge of untreated wastewater from its sulfuric acid plant directly through MPC’s main outfall, its combined release of untreated and undertreated stormwater and process wastewater from other outfalls, and its failure to implement required remedial measures to prevent the pollutant discharges and environmental harm it has caused for decades. 

An April 2005 discharge resulted in the release of more than 17 million gallons of highly acidic wastewater into waterways adjacent to its facility, including Bayou Casotte, Tillman Creek and Bangs Lake of the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. These waters are some of the most productive nurseries for aquatic species on the Gulf Coast. MPC’s massive discharge of pollutants resulted in the death of thousands of fish and other forms of marine life as well as the destruction of marsh grass, trees and shrubs. In the years following this environmental catastrophe, in spite of MDEQ’s orders and MPC’s remedial proposals, MPC never implemented the measures necessary to prevent the release of pollutants from its facility and the discharge of an even larger torrent of wastewater destroying even more marine life.

U.S. Attorney Davis praised the efforts of EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, for its diligent work in the investigation of this matter. Senior Trial Attorney Jeremy F. Korzenik of the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Gaines Cleveland are the prosecutors in charge of the case.

CROOKED FEDERAL CONTRACTORS CAUGHT: U.S. Investigations Services and its parent company, Altegrity, Agree to Forego at Least $30 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations

U.S. Investigations Services Agrees to Forego at Least $30 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations


Contractor Allegedly Failed to Perform Required Quality Control Reviews on Contracts for Background Investigations with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management

The Justice Department announced today that U.S. Investigations Services Inc. (USIS) and its parent company, Altegrity, have agreed to settle allegations that USIS violated the False Claims Act (FCA) for conduct involving a contract for background investigations that USIS held with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The companies have agreed to forgo their right to collect payments that they claim were owed by OPM, valued at least at $30 million, in exchange for a release of liability under the FCA. USIS and Altegrity are headquartered in Northern Virginia.

From its privatization in 1996 until September 2014, USIS provided background investigations services for OPM under various fieldwork contracts. The government alleged that beginning in at least March 2008 and continuing through at least September 2012, USIS deliberately circumvented contractually required quality reviews of completed background investigations in order to increase the company’s revenues and profits. Specifically, USIS allegedly devised a practice referred to internally as “dumping” or “flushing,” which involved releasing cases to OPM and representing them as complete when, in fact, not all the reports of investigations comprising those cases had received a contractually-required quality review. The government contended that, relying upon USIS’ false representations, OPM issued payments and contract incentives to USIS that it would not otherwise have issued had OPM been aware that the background investigations had not gone through the quality review process required by the contracts.

“Shortcuts taken by any company that we have entrusted to conduct background investigations of future and current federal employees are unacceptable,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “The Justice Department will ensure that those who do business with the government provide all of the services for which we bargained.”

“Contractors who do business for the federal government have a responsibility to provide the goods and services that they promise,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Vincent H. Cohen Jr. of the District of Columbia. “This particular company failed to meet its obligations of comprehensively reviewing the backgrounds of current and prospective federal employees. This settlement demonstrates our commitment to holding government contractors accountable.”

“This case demonstrates my office’s dedication to protecting tax payers’ money,” said U.S. Attorney George L. Beck Jr. of the Middle District of Alabama. “We will continue to vigorously pursue all fraud against the government in order to restore and safeguard funds paid by our citizens.”

In February 2015, Altegrity, USIS and their affiliates filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in Delaware. The settlement of USIS’ FCA liability is part of a broader settlement that also resolves other matters between the United States and USIS/Altegrity that were part of the bankruptcy proceeding.

The FCA lawsuit against USIS was originally filed under the whistleblower provisions of the act by Blake Percival, a former executive at USIS. The FCA prohibits the submission of false claims for government money or property and, under the act’s whistleblower provisions, a private party may file suit on behalf of the United States and share in any recovery. The United States may elect to intervene and take over the case, as it did here. Mr. Percival’s share of the settlement has not yet been determined.

The settlement was the result of a coordinated effort by the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Middle District of Alabama, OPM and OPM’s Office of Inspector General.

The claims resolved by the settlement agreement are allegations only and there has been no determination of liability. The case is United States of America, ex rel., Blake Percival, v. U.S. Investigations Services, LLC, No. 14-cv-00726-RMC (D.D.C.).

CRIMINAL FEDS ARE EVERYWHERE: A former federal employee, Michael C. Ford, 36, was charged by indictment on Aug. 18, 2015, with nine counts of cyberstalking, seven counts of computer hacking to extort and one count of wire fraud.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Former U.S. Government Employee Charged in Computer Hacking and Cyber Stalking Scheme

A former locally-employed staff member of the U.S. Embassy in London was charged with engaging in a hacking and cyberstalking scheme in which, using stolen passwords, he obtained sexually explicit photographs and other personal information from victims’ email and social media accounts, and threatened to share the photographs and personal information unless the victims ceded to certain demands.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney John A. Horn of the Northern District of Georgia, Director Bill A. Miller of the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and Special Agent in Charge J. Britt Johnson of the FBI’s Atlanta Division made the announcement.

Michael C. Ford, 36, was charged by indictment on Aug. 18, 2015, with nine counts of cyberstalking, seven counts of computer hacking to extort and one count of wire fraud.

“According to the indictment, Ford hacked into email accounts and extorted sexually explicit images from scores of victims,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “As these allegations highlight, predators use the Internet to target innocent victims. With the help of victims and our law enforcement partners, we will find those predators and hold them accountable.”

“Ford is alleged to have hacked into hundreds of email accounts and tormented women across the country, by threatening to humiliate them unless they provided him with sexually explicit photos and videos,” said U.S. Attorney John Horn. “This sadistic conduct is all the more disturbing as Ford is alleged to have used the U.S. Embassy in London as a base for his cyberstalking campaign.”

“The Diplomatic Security Service is firmly committed to working with the Department of Justice and our other law enforcement partners to investigate allegations of crime and to bring those who commit these crimes to justice,” said Director Miller. “When a public servant in a position of trust is alleged to have committed a federal felony such as cybercrime, we vigorously investigate such claims.”

“While the allegations in this case are disturbing, it does illustrate the willingness and commitment of the FBI and its federal partners to aggressively follow those allegations wherever they take us,” said Special Agent in Charge Johnson. “The FBI will continue to provide significant resources and assets as we address complex cyber based investigations as seen here.”

According to allegations in the indictment, from January 2013 through May 2015, Ford, using various aliases that included “David Anderson” and “John Parsons,” engaged in a computer hacking and “sextortion” campaign to force numerous women to provide him with personal information and sexually explicit photographs and videos. To do so, Ford allegedly posed as a member of the fictitious “account deletion team” for a well-known email service provider and sent notices to thousands of potential victims, including members of college sororities, warning them that their accounts would be deleted if they did not provide their passwords.

Using the passwords collected from this phishing scheme, Ford allegedly hacked into hundreds of email and social media accounts, stole sexually explicit photographs and personal identifying information (PII), and saved both the photographs and PII to his personal repository.

Ford then allegedly emailed the victims and threatened to release the photographs, which were attached to the emails, unless they obtained videos of “sexy girls” undressing in changing rooms at pools, gyms and clothing stores, and then sent the videos to him.

The indictment alleges that, when the victims either refused to comply or begged Ford to leave them alone, Ford responded with additional threats, including by reminding the victims that he knew where they lived. On several occasions, Ford allegedly followed through with his threats by sending sexually explicit photographs to victims’ family members and friends.

During the pendency of the alleged scheme, Ford was a civilian employee at the U.S. Embassy in London, England. He allegedly used his government-issued computer at the U.S. Embassy to conduct the phishing, hacking and cyberstalking activities.

The charges and allegations contained in an indictment are merely accusations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The case is being investigated by the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and the FBI. The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs and the U.S. Embassy in London provided assistance. The case is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Mona Sedky of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, Trial Attorney Jamie Perry of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kamal Ghali of the Northern District of Georgia.

Anyone who believes that they are the victim of hacking, cyberstalking, or “sextortion” should contact law enforcement. Resources regarding hacking and other cybercrimes can be found at: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber.