The Justice Department’s enforcement docket over the past 48 hours was dominated by national security cases — including unsealed charges against an alleged Kremlin-directed assassination network that reached into the United States, and the sentencing of an ISIS-K operative for his role in the Abbey Gate bombing — alongside a multi-defendant fraud takedown targeting Los Angeles homelessness programs, a guilty plea by Maduro-regime ally Alex Saab, and new civil enforcement actions on Second Amendment and religious-discrimination grounds. Here is TIJ’s daily review of the actions that matter, with direct links to the underlying public records. All claims below are drawn from Justice Department releases and court filings; charges are allegations unless a plea or conviction is noted, and every charged defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Five charged in alleged Russian intelligence murder-for-hire network operating on U.S. soil
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday unsealed an indictment charging five men alleged to work for the intelligence services of the Russian Federation with conspiring to finance terrorism and to commit murder for hire inside the United States. According to the indictment, the network — which the government calls the “RIS Network” — paid and attempted to pay individuals in the United States to conduct pre-operational surveillance and carry out targeted killings, and commissioned attacks on civilian and military infrastructure in European countries aligned with Ukraine. All five defendants remain at large.
The filings identify the alleged senior figures as Yuri Khrameev, 63, described as a former colonel in Russian intelligence; his son Kirill Khrameev, 27, described as an officer in the FSB; and Oemis Romagoza Durruthy, 35, a Cuban national living in Russia. Two alleged recruiters, Yaidel Delgado Suarez and Angel Eduardo Castro, are accused of paying a U.S. resident this summer to surveil locations tied to a prominent Russian dissident believed to be living in the United States, and of offering that person $40,000 to “eliminate” the target. The indictment also describes a 2025 offer of roughly $25,000 to a U.S. citizen to kill a man in Lithuania whom the alleged recruiter said was “telling lies about Russia,” as well as coordination of 2024 attacks in Prague and Lithuania. Prosecutors say the elder Khrameev told a recruit the goal was to target “all the countries that are helping Ukraine.”
The significance is hard to overstate: filings in this case offer one of the most detailed public accounts to date of alleged Russian state-directed violence plots reaching U.S. soil, and they land amid growing congressional attention to transnational repression. Because the defendants are abroad and at large, near-term arrests appear unlikely — but the indictment lays a foundation for potential sanctions and extradition requests. The terrorism-financing conspiracy count carries a maximum of 20 years; the murder-for-hire conspiracy count carries a maximum of 10. An indictment is merely an allegation.
ISIS-K operative sentenced to 20 years for role in Abbey Gate bombing
Mohammad Sharifullah, an Afghan national and member of ISIS-K, was sentenced Wednesday in the Eastern District of Virginia to 20 years in prison for participating in a nearly decade-long conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. According to court records and evidence presented at trial, ISIS-K leadership tasked Sharifullah with surveilling the route to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26, 2021; hours after he reported the route clear, a suicide bomber he knew from an Afghan prison detonated a device at Abbey Gate, killing 13 U.S. service members and approximately 160 civilians.
Records in the case indicate Sharifullah participated in more than a dozen ISIS-K attacks between 2016 and his apprehension in 2025, including surveillance and transport support for a 2016 suicide bombing targeting Canadian embassy guards in Kabul, and sharing weapons instructions with the gunmen who killed over 100 civilians at Crocus City Hall near Moscow in March 2024. Court documents are available through the Eastern District of Virginia and on PACER under Case No. 1:25-cr-143.
The sentencing represents concrete courtroom accountability connected to the deadliest single attack on U.S. forces during the Afghanistan withdrawal — an outcome the department attributed to his overseas capture and transfer to the United States in 2025. Filings in the case may continue to matter: they document ISIS-K’s external-operations network at a moment when the group remains a stated top concern of U.S. counterterrorism officials.
Maduro ally Alex Saab pleads guilty in Miami money-laundering case
Alex Nain Saab Moran, 54, a former minister in the regime of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Miami federal court to conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. According to the department, Saab admitted to organizing bribes so that entities secretly controlled by conspirators won Venezuelan government contracts under the CLAP food-and-medicine welfare program, then using fake companies, false invoices, and false shipping records to skim hundreds of millions of dollars — laundering proceeds around the world, including into the United States.
The procedural history is extraordinary. U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones noted that President Biden granted Saab clemency in December 2023 while he awaited trial, after which Saab was released and returned to Venezuela. Prosecutors then built a new case, secured a new indictment in January 2026, and — working with federal and international partners — brought Saab back before a Miami federal court on May 18, according to the release. Saab faces a maximum of 20 years in prison; no sentencing date has been set.
Notably, the release does not explain how Saab returned to U.S. custody — a question with real diplomatic implications given the state of U.S.-Venezuela relations, and one TIJ intends to pursue. His plea could also renew attention to other CLAP-linked figures previously identified in Treasury sanctions actions.
L.A. homelessness fraud takedown: more than $12 million allegedly diverted
Federal authorities on Wednesday announced three new criminal cases and a related plea agreement targeting alleged fraud in Los Angeles-area homelessness programs. According to a criminal complaint, Michael Young, 46, founder of the Culver City nonprofit Home At Last, misappropriated more than $7.5 million of the $118 million-plus in public funds his organization received from LAHSA, the City and County of Los Angeles, and HUD — allegedly routing money through sham vendors with no employees or operations, and spending over $1 million on an Inglewood restaurant and nightclub, plus luxury vacations, vintage car restorations, and commercial real estate.
Also charged are Donye Mitchell, 55, a nonprofit CEO accused of fraudulently obtaining more than $1.2 million in grant funds and currently considered a fugitive, and Lakiya Malone, 48, an employee of the nonprofit SSG indicted on 21 counts for allegedly accepting more than $180,000 in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for priority housing referrals — including “ghost” participants who never lived at the housing sites. Alexander Soofer, the nonprofit executive who allegedly paid those bribes and received more than $17 million from SSG during the scheme, has agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud and money laundering, admitting he pocketed at least $2 million of the $23 million in public homelessness funds he obtained.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the cases “expose a profound failure by the State of California and Los Angeles County to safeguard public funds.” The Homelessness Fraud and Corruption Task Force covering the seven-county Central District signaled continued enforcement, and the underlying oversight questions — LAHSA alone paid Home At Last over $75 million, per the complaint — merit sustained scrutiny. All charged defendants are presumed innocent.
Pennsylvania man charged after alleged ISIS-inspired attack preparations
Jonathan Hunter Kramer, 21, of Valencia, Pennsylvania, was charged by federal criminal complaint with receiving a firearm and ammunition with reasonable cause to believe they would be used to commit a federal crime of terrorism. FBI agents interdicted Kramer at a Cranberry Township hotel over the weekend; according to the affidavit, agents seized a semiautomatic rifle, five magazines, 190 rounds of ammunition, and approximately 30 knives. The affidavit states Kramer had adopted the online persona “Hamza Al Rashid,” claimed ISIS affiliation, offered to share explosive manuals, and wrote that he was missing only a “weapon” for his “mission.”
The affidavit further states that Kramer was known to the FBI from a 2023 investigation that ended in a Pennsylvania juvenile adjudication connected to a mass-casualty plot, and that an anonymous online tip in March 2026 — days after his release from a juvenile facility — reported a return to troubling behavior. He made his initial appearance Sept. 14; the government is seeking detention pending trial. A criminal complaint is an accusation, and Kramer is presumed innocent.
The case highlights two threads worth watching: the role of citizen tips in interdiction — the FBI moved from tip to arrest inside six months — and the recurring policy debate over supervision of individuals released from juvenile custody after terrorism-related adjudications.
Detroit-area man charged in $4.75 million Medicare fraud scheme
A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Michigan indicted Emory Matthews, 62, of Farmington Hills, on charges of conspiring to bill Medicare roughly $4.75 million for psychotherapy services never provided at New Beginnings, a Detroit adult day care center owned by his wife. The indictment alleges claims were submitted for beneficiaries who were hospitalized at the time — and in some instances deceased — and that Matthews, previously convicted of health care kickbacks and excluded from Medicare billing, concealed his managing role at the facility. His wife, Yolanda Matthews, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud on July 27.
Matthews faces up to 10 years per count if convicted and is presumed innocent. The alleged exclusion-evasion pattern — a previously convicted operator continuing to control a billing entity through a family member — is a recurring vulnerability in Medicare program integrity, and the department noted its Health Care Fraud Strike Force has charged more than 6,200 defendants tied to over $45 billion in billings since 2007.
DOJ sues San Jose over $1,600 carry-permit fee
The Civil Rights Division on Wednesday filed suit against the City of San Jose and its police department, alleging that the city’s nearly $1,600 application fee for a license to carry a firearm — which the department describes as the highest in the nation — violates the Second Amendment. The complaint invokes Supreme Court language holding that “exorbitant fees” can deny ordinary citizens the right to carry for self-defense, and notes the fee dwarfs those charged by New York, Washington, Boston, and Chicago.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon called the fee “an unconstitutional attempt to impede Americans’ Second Amendment rights.” The suit is an early test of the division’s Second Amendment Section, and its outcome could set a benchmark for fee-based challenges in other high-cost permitting jurisdictions.
Title VI settlement over treatment of Jewish medical students
DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and HHS’s Office for Civil Rights entered a voluntary settlement with Lincoln Memorial University resolving a joint Title VI investigation. According to the announcement, the university’s DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine denied Jewish students’ requests to reschedule exams for religious holidays during the 2025-26 school year while granting similar requests from non-Jewish students, then adopted a policy in January 2026 refusing all religious accommodations while permitting non-religious excused absences.
Under the agreement, the school will revise its absence policy, reverse penalties imposed on affected students, and conduct training; because of its cooperation, the university remains eligible for federal funding. The settlement signals that the administration’s Title VI antisemitism enforcement now extends well beyond elite research universities into professional and medical schools.
What TIJ is watching
Several threads from this docket warrant deeper investigation. First, the unexplained mechanics of Alex Saab’s return to U.S. custody after his 2023 clemency — and whether his plea agreement includes cooperation that could expose other CLAP-linked actors. Second, the paper trail between LAHSA and Home At Last: public records suggest more than $75 million flowed to a single nonprofit whose founder is now accused of running sham vendors, raising audit-failure questions for both the county and the state. Third, whether the RIS Network indictment is followed by Treasury sanctions designations, and what protective measures exist for the U.S.-based dissident identified in filings only as Victim-1. Finally, the San Jose complaint as a litigation template — records indicate several other California jurisdictions charge carry-permit fees far above the national norm, and the Second Amendment Section has invited public complaints.
Sources and records
- DOJ: Members of Russian Intelligence Services Network Charged (Sept. 15, 2026)
- DOJ: ISIS-K Terrorist Sentenced to 20 Years (Sept. 16, 2026); court records: E.D. Va. No. 1:25-cr-143 via PACER
- DOJ: Alex Saab Pleads Guilty (Sept. 15, 2026)
- DOJ: L.A.-Area Homeless Nonprofit Defendants Arrested (Sept. 16, 2026)
- DOJ: Butler County Man Charged (Sept. 15, 2026); criminal complaint affidavit
- DOJ: $4.75M Medicare Fraud Charge (Sept. 15, 2026)
- DOJ: Suit Against San Jose (Sept. 16, 2026); complaint
- DOJ: Lincoln Memorial University Settlement (Sept. 15, 2026)
Editorial note: This digest is compiled from official Justice Department releases and public court filings linked above. Pending charges are allegations, not findings; all defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. Individuals and organizations named in this report may submit responses or corrections to TIJ for inclusion in follow-up coverage.