The Justice Department’s opening days of the week produced a trade-secret conviction with a China nexus, more than $82 million in False Claims Act recoveries across four settlements, a cartel money-laundering indictment out of Minneapolis, and a new federalism fight over courthouse immigration arrests. Here is what the public record shows, with links to the underlying releases and filings.
Chicago Jury Convicts Former Philips Engineer of Stealing X-Ray Trade Secrets for Chinese Competitor
A federal jury in Chicago on Friday convicted Chih-Yee Jen, 71, of Mequon, Wisconsin, on both counts he faced — conspiracy to steal, misappropriate, or possess trade secrets, and possession or attempted possession of stolen trade secrets — according to a Justice Department release issued Monday. Jen worked as an engineer at Philips Medical Systems’ facility in Aurora, Illinois, where the company researched and manufactured X-ray tubes for CT imaging machines under its Dunlee brand.
According to the release, as Philips prepared to close the Aurora facility in 2017, China-based Kunshan GuoLi Electronic Technology Co. Ltd. and one of its vice presidents, Xiaoqin Du, began communicating with Jen about building a U.S. subsidiary to compete with Philips in X-ray tube development. Prosecutors said Jen shared confidential Philips documents while still employed there, copied proprietary data from internal databases, and recruited multiple Philips engineers to join him. Two of them — Fince Tendian, 57, of Aurora, and Vladimir Nevtonenko, 77, of Arlington Heights, Illinois — pleaded guilty before trial to possessing stolen trade secrets, with sentencings set for Dec. 1 and Dec. 8.
U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang set Jen’s sentencing for Jan. 5, 2027. Notably, Du, Kunshan GuoLi, and a related entity, Kunshan Yiyuan Medical Technology Co. Ltd., were also indicted but sit on the court’s fugitive calendar and have never been arraigned — charges against them remain allegations only. “When individuals, corporate entities, or nation states steal proprietary information, they are threatening our country’s technological edge,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros for the Northern District of Illinois.
Tetra Tech Pays $57 Million Over Falsified Radiation Testing at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard
Tetra Tech EC Inc., a subsidiary of Tetra Tech Inc., paid $57 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that it fabricated work and falsified soil-testing data the Navy relied on to certify that the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco was free of harmful radiation, the department announced Monday. Under Navy contracts issued between 2003 and 2014, the firm was hired to investigate and remediate radiological contamination so the property could be transferred to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment.
The government’s complaint, filed in the Northern District of California, alleged that Tetra Tech instructed field technicians to discard soil samples from potentially contaminated locations and substitute “clean” soil known to pass release criteria, and that the company manipulated scan results in its database. Filings indicate the alleged misconduct let the company collect unearned award fees while avoiding costly additional remediation. The settlement resolves consolidated whistleblower suits — United States ex rel. Jahr, et al. v. Tetra Tech EC, Inc., No. 13-3835 (N.D. Cal.) — brought by seven former employees and contractors, who will share approximately $11.97 million. The government separately recovered $40 million under a Superfund settlement entered in July 2025.
The department noted the claims resolved are allegations only, with no determination of liability. Given that federal remediation at Hunters Point has spanned two decades and the site anchors one of San Francisco’s largest redevelopment projects, the practical question — how much retesting the Navy’s certification now requires — remains open.
Deloitte Agrees to $21.5 Million Settlement Under DOJ’s Civil Rights Fraud Initiative
Five Deloitte entities agreed Tuesday to pay $21.5 million to resolve allegations that the firm violated the False Claims Act by falsely certifying compliance with anti-discrimination requirements in federal contracts while making employment decisions based on race and sex. The resolution is the latest under the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative the department launched in May 2025, which treats false compliance certifications by federal contractors as actionable fraud.
According to the settlement announcement, the government alleged that from 2017 onward Deloitte tracked progress toward non-public demographic workforce goals in monthly color-coded summaries, tied a portion of senior partner evaluations — and for roughly 150 of its most senior partners, compensation — to demographic targets, and limited eligibility for certain leadership development programs by race or sex. The qui tam suit, United States ex rel. American Alliance for Equal Rights v. Deloitte LLP, et al., No. 4:25-cv-00458 (N.D. Tex.), will yield the relator $4.3 million. “Labeling the practice DEI does not make it lawful,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the release.
The claims resolved are allegations only; there has been no determination of liability, and Deloitte’s own account of the practices at issue was not included in the government’s release. The settlement nonetheless signals that the FCA — historically a procurement and healthcare fraud statute — is now a primary enforcement vehicle against contractor diversity programs, a development with implications for every major professional services firm holding federal work.
Minneapolis Money-Transmitter Employee Charged With Laundering Drug Proceeds for CJNG
A federal grand jury in Minnesota returned an indictment Aug. 20 charging Christopher A. Bravo Marin, 46, of Minneapolis, a Mexican national, with conspiring to launder at least $750,000 in drug proceeds for the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, according to a release issued Tuesday. Homeland Security Investigations agents arrested him Monday, and he appeared before a magistrate judge in Minneapolis the following day.
The indictment alleges a scheme notable for its simplicity: from at least February 2023 to February 2026, Bravo allegedly used his position at a Minnesota-based money transmitter — and his knowledge of its compliance procedures — to structure transfers just below the $1,000 threshold that triggers identity verification, invented sender names, routed funds to straw beneficiaries in Mexico supplied by cartel members, and forged sender signatures on payment confirmations. Filings indicate cartel members paid him roughly $40 to $50 per laundered transfer.
Bravo faces one count of money laundering conspiracy, carrying a maximum of 20 years. An indictment is an allegation only, and Bravo is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The case, brought through the Homeland Security Task Force initiative, underscores a persistent vulnerability: sub-threshold structuring through retail money transmitters remains a preferred cartel repatriation channel precisely because it exploits compliance rules from the inside.
Medicare Advantage Provider Monogram Health Settles Diagnosis-Coding Allegations for $2.4 Million
Tennessee-based Monogram Health agreed to pay $2.4 million to resolve allegations that it caused the submission of false diagnosis codes to inflate Medicare Advantage risk-adjustment payments. The government alleged that from January 2021 through December 2023, the in-home care provider submitted codes in four high-value diagnostic categories — protein-calorie malnutrition, substance use disorder, coagulation defects, and angina pectoris — that were not clinically accurate, not supported by medical records, or did not affect patient care.
Because Medicare Advantage pays plans more for sicker patients, and Monogram’s contracts with insurers shared in that upside, filings indicate the company had a direct financial incentive to raise patients’ risk scores. The whistleblower, Dr. Ajay Gupta, a physician formerly employed by Monogram, will receive approximately $380,000 under the settlement in U.S. ex rel. Gupta v. Monogram Health Professional Services, No. 2:22-cv-08758 (C.D. Cal.). The claims resolved are allegations only, and the department noted Monogram received cooperation credit under Justice Manual guidelines.
AiNET and Former CEO Pay $1.8 Million Over Data Center Certifications to the SEC
AiNET Corp., operator of a Beltsville, Maryland data center, and former CEO Deepak Jain agreed to pay $1.8 million to resolve allegations that they fraudulently induced the Securities and Exchange Commission to award a data center services contract, per a Monday release. The government alleged the company falsely certified its facility met Tier III reliability standards and claimed an entity called “UpTime Council” had inspected the center and rated it Tier IV — when, according to the complaint, UpTime Council was not an operating company and no inspection ever occurred.
The settlement — allegations only, with no liability determination — closes a matter investigated with the SEC’s Office of Inspector General. It is a reminder that certification fraud in federal IT procurement often turns on paper credentials no contracting officer ever verifies, an area where records suggest oversight remains thin.
DOJ Sues Ohio Court Over Rule Barring Immigration Arrests at Courthouse
The department on Tuesday filed suit against the Franklin County Municipal Court in Columbus, Ohio, its administrative and presiding judge, and its director of security, challenging the court’s new Rule 2.10, which purports to bar federal officers from arresting aliens at or near the courthouse and to impose civil and criminal liability for violations. The complaint argues the rule is an unlawful attempt by a local entity to regulate federal law enforcement operations.
The suit extends a litigation campaign the Civil Division has run against similar state and local measures in New York, Virginia, Connecticut, New Jersey, California, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia. The defendants have not yet answered the complaint in court, and the allegations remain just that — allegations — until adjudicated. The Franklin County case is worth watching because it targets a court’s own administrative rule rather than a state statute, framing a cleaner test of intergovernmental immunity doctrine.
Oregon Contractor Sentenced to 42 Months for Tax Evasion and Loan Fraud
Joel Matthew Caswell, 32, of Jacksonville, Oregon, was sentenced to 42 months in prison for tax evasion, employment tax crimes, bank fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft, the department said Tuesday. According to court records cited in the release, Caswell controlled logging and construction businesses employing roughly 40 people, withheld employment taxes from workers’ paychecks from 2018 through 2022, and willfully failed to pay those funds over to the IRS — then evaded collection by routing customer checks to himself and lying to IRS officers.
Between 2022 and 2024, Caswell also submitted fabricated financial records to a bank, a private lender, and the Small Business Administration — including fraudulent PPP and EIDL applications for all three businesses — and used another person’s identity to obtain a residential mortgage. In a detail that distinguishes this case from the typical payroll-tax file, he transferred $70,000 in fraud proceeds as a deposit for an ultimate frisbee tournament. Caswell pleaded guilty June 9; Judge Michael J. McShane ordered five years of supervised release and $1,198,799.83 in restitution to the IRS. These facts rest on his guilty plea and sentencing, not mere allegations.
What Warrants Deeper TIJ Investigation
Three threads from this cycle merit sustained attention. First, the Hunters Point settlement closes a 13-year-old whistleblower case but opens harder questions: what did Navy oversight miss for a decade, how much of the shipyard’s radiological certification now requires revalidation, and what exposure remains for the redevelopment timeline. The department’s separate launch of the National Fraud Detection Center Monday — a prosecutor-led, multi-agency hub pooling data from more than a dozen inspectors general and seven states — suggests contractor fraud detection is about to become considerably more data-driven; how that data-sharing operates deserves scrutiny of its own.
Second, the Deloitte resolution confirms the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative is producing recurring eight-figure settlements from certification theories, and records suggest more professional-services and defense contractors are in the pipeline. Third, the Kunshan GuoLi corporate defendants remain unarraigned fugitives after a U.S. conviction of their alleged recruit — whether those entities or their affiliates continue selling into the U.S. medical imaging market is a question public trade records may answer, and TIJ intends to look.
Editor’s note: Charges described in pending cases are allegations; defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Civil settlements referenced above resolve allegations only, with no determination of liability except where a court has entered findings. All claims herein are drawn from the linked Justice Department releases and court filings. Individuals and entities named who wish to respond may reach the editorial desk via the contact page at tij.news; this digest will be updated to reflect substantive responses.
Featured image: U.S. Department of Justice graphic (public domain, U.S. government work).