By Devlin Barrett
WASHINGTON--The Justice Department collected more than $24
billion in criminal and civil penalties in the budget year that
ended in September, officials said Wednesday, more than triple the
amount collected the year before.
The record amount was boosted by hefty fines the government has
levied against big Wall Street banks. Much of the money came from
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup, Inc., as those banks
resolved multibillion-dollar civil probes into how they packaged
and sold mortgage-backed securities leading up to the financial
crisis in 2008.
Billions of dollars were also collected in cases the Justice
Department brought under the False Claims Act, in which the
government recovers money from alleged defrauding of government
programs.
The haul includes all money collected as a result of Justice
Department enforcement actions and negotiated settlements. Roughly
$13.7 billion went directly to the Justice Department. The
Department didn't specify where that money will be spent. The
remaining $11 billion went to other agencies, states, or other
recipients. Some of the money came from cases settled in previous
years but collected in the last year.
Justice Department officials said the total figure is the
product of hundreds of thousands of disbursements, and couldn't
break down specific spending that results from the collections.
Some collections, like criminal fines and court-imposed special
assessments, go to the Crime Victims Fund. Civil penalties go to
various agencies, including the Treasury, and whistleblowers.
This year's collection is just $3 billion shy of the
department's projected spending for the same year, and it is also
about double the $12 billion taken in by the Justice Department in
2012.
"Every day, the Justice Department's federal prosecutors and
trial attorneys work hard to protect our citizens, to safeguard
precious taxpayer resources, and to provide a valuable return on
investment to the American people," said Attorney General Eric
Holder. "Their diligent efforts are enabling us to achieve justice
and recoup losses in virtually every sector of the U.S.
economy."
Another big case that generated hundreds of millions of dollars
was the global investigation of suspected manipulation of the
London Interbank Offering Rate, or LIBOR, which is the rate at
which banks lend each other money.
Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com
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