Justice Department

Don King expects to be indicted on insurance and tax-fraud charges within the next two weeks, associates of the boxing promoter said last night. King could not be reached for comment, but a spokesman said that the promoter acknowledged that the Justice Department was investigating his financial dealings. "Don feels he will be indicted, but his feeling is, 'Either do it or don't do it - just get it over with,' " said Michael Marley, a spokesman for the promoter. "He wants to get it over with, because it's his contention that he's done nothing illegal.

The Justice Department, responding to pressure from the family of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., agreed yesterday to investigate new evidence in the 1968 assassination of the civil rights leader. The investigation, announced by Attorney General Janet Reno, could help settle some of the questions about a possible conspiracy that have existed since Dr. King was shot to death on a Memphis, Tenn., motel balcony. The civil rights community has long had suspicions about the assassination and has suggested there was a conspiracy involving law enforcement and organized crime.

One of America's largest medical companies, National Health Laboratories, agreed last month to pay the government $110 million to settle a lawsuit for unnecessary medical tests billed to Medicaid and Medicare. In July, General Electric agreed to pay a $59.5 million civil settlement stemming from a conspiracy between GE executives and an Israeli general to charge the United States for goods and services that were never provided. In June, the successor to the Singer Corp., the CAE-Link Corp.

Federal attorneys did not act unprofessionally by dropping voting-rights charges against two of three New Black Panther Party members allegedly involved in voter intimidation at a Fairmount Avenue polling place in 2008, a Justice Department internal review has concluded. The case has received wide attention from Republicans unhappy with the way the Obama administration has handled it. The alleged harassment at 12th Street and Fairmount received virtually no attention in Philadelphia when it occurred Nov. 4, 2008, the day of President Obama's election.

PHOENIX - The U.S. Justice Department sued America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff Thursday, a rare step for the agency after months of negotiations failed to reach a settlement over allegations that his department racially profiled Latinos in his immigration patrols. Federal officials said that only once before had the agency filed a lawsuit against a police department that they were unable to reach an agreement with in the 18-year history of the DOJ's police reform efforts.

The federal government has taken over the investigation of misconduct allegations against investigators and prosecutors involved in a probe of city prison corruption. Following a meeting with Police Commissioner Willie Williams, District Attorney Ronald D. Castille and FBI officials, representatives of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department yesterday agreed to review the handling of the cases and treatment of witnesses. Today, FBI agents were expected to begin reviewing the evidence to determine if civil rights had been violated.

Justice Department officials, in a rare move, yesterday challenged part of independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's conspiracy charges against retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North in the Iran-contra arms sale case. In its memo, the Justice Department echoed North's view that he has done nothing criminal but instead has been caught in a political conflict between the President and Congress over foreign policy powers. The department said, "Policy disagreements between the executive and legislative branches are contemplated by the Constitution and cannot be criminal in nature.

In a setback to the food and cosmetic industries, the government will not appeal to the Supreme Court a ruling that food and cosmetics with traces of carcinogens must be kept off the market, federal officials said yesterday. Ruling in a case involving food and cosmetic dyes known to cause cancer in animals, the Food and Drug Administration refused last year to ban the dyes, arguing that the cancer risk was so small as to be legally insignificant. But a federal appeals court threw out the FDA ruling in October, concluding that a 1958 law known as the Delaney Clause, after its principal author, required the agency to ban any food additive known to cause cancer in humans or animals.

Although government doctors dispute many claims made against a $132 million fund to compensate families of children injured or killed by vaccinations, the Justice Department is refusing to supply lawyers to contest claims or negotiate settlements in most cases. Justice Department officials contend that they lack adequate staff to handle the claims, in part because of complicated court procedures and tight deadlines for closing cases under the new injury-compensation program, which began last year.

We'll just have to wait and see whether the feds really have shed their quaint illusion that they're more powerful than Microsoft. But it looked that way for a moment last week, when the Justice Department took the rare step of assuring the world it would take no antitrust action against the software giant before the ardently awaited Aug. 24 release of Windows 95. You ask: Why did so many people get the cold sweats at the thought of...

PHOENIX - The U.S. Justice Department sued America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff Thursday, a rare step for the agency after months of negotiations failed to reach a settlement over allegations that his department racially profiled Latinos in his immigration patrols. Federal officials said that only once before had the agency filed a lawsuit against a police department that they were unable to reach an agreement with in the 18-year history of the DOJ's police reform efforts.

NEW ORLEANS - A BP engineer intentionally deleted more than 300 text messages that said the company's efforts to control the Gulf of Mexico oil spill were failing and that the amount of oil leaking was far more than what the company reported, the Justice Department said Tuesday. In the first criminal charges related to the deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in April 2010, the Justice Department arrested Kurt Mix and charged him with two counts of obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying evidence sought by federal authorities, officials announced in a statement.

WASHINGTON - The General Services Administration's inspector general said Monday that he was investigating possible bribery and kickbacks in the agency, as a central figure in a GSA spending scandal asserted his right to remain silent at a congressional hearing. Inspector general Brian Miller, responding to a question at the hearing, said: "We do have other ongoing investigations, including all sorts of improprieties, including bribes, including possible kickbacks. " Jeffrey Neely, who asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege before the committee, has been placed on leave as a regional executive in Western states.

SANFORD, FLA. - Minutes before an unarmed black teenager was shot to death last month, he told his girlfriend that he was being followed, a lawyer said yesterday as federal and state prosecutors announced investigations. " 'Oh he's right behind me; he's right behind me again,' " Trayvon Martin, 17, told his girlfriend on his cellphone, the Martin family's attorney said. The girl later heard Martin say, "Why are you following me?" Another man asked, "What are you doing around here?

One Pennsylvania doctor in 2008 wrote 1,913 prescriptions for the antipsychotic drug Risperdal - a bit more than 5.2 per day in that leap year, counting weekends and holidays - costing Medicaid $341,273.71. The top 10 prescribers in Pennsylvania's system that year wrote 9,557 Risperdal scripts costing Medicaid $1.76 million, according to figures provided by a state official to U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), who has pushed for disclosure of such information and the relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies.

Justice to weigh probing NYPD WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told Congress on Tuesday that months after receiving complaints about the New York Police Department's surveillance of Muslim neighborhoods, the Justice Department is beginning a review to decide whether to investigate civil rights violations. Police seeking to monitor activities by citizens "should only do so when there is a basis to believe that something inappropriate is occurring or potentially could occur," Holder said.

WASHINGTON - Democrats looking into Operation Fast and Furious say a yearlong investigation has turned up no evidence that the flawed gun-smuggling probe was conceived or directed by high-level political appointees at Justice Department headquarters. The probe, the Democrats say, was just one of four such operations that were part of a misguided five-year-long effort, during both the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, in the Phoenix division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives against firearms trafficking along the Southwest border.

The U.S. Department of Justice is taking a hard line with states that pass restrictive voting laws, which is good news for disadvantaged Americans who want their right to vote protected. Using its powers under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department announced last week that it's blocking a South Carolina law requiring voters to produce government-issued photo identification at the polls. The state is one of several that have imposed such restrictions on the flimsy grounds that they will discourage the extremely rare crime of impersonating a registered voter.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration's civil-rights office stepped up its fight with Southern states over voting rights, saying Friday that it would block a new South Carolina law that requires voters to show a government-issued photo ID before casting a ballot. The Justice Department invoked the Voting Rights Act, saying the new photo ID rule could deny the right to vote for tens of thousands of blacks and other minorities. "According to the state's statistics, there are 81,938 minority citizens who are already registered to vote and who lack DMV-issued identification," Thomas E. Perez, chief of Justice's Civil Rights Division, said in a letter to South Carolina officials.