The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) provides a wide range of protections for individuals entering, called to active duty in the military, or deployed service members, and is intended to postpone or suspend certain civil obligations to enable service members to devote full attention to duty and relieve stress on the family members of those deployed servicemembers.  See, www.military.com .

For example, the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division announced settlements in May with two lenders under the SCRA, resolving allegations that the lenders wrongfully foreclosed upon active duty servicemembers without first obtaining court orders, in violation of the SCRA.  According to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Press Release, the combined settlements provide more than $22 million in monetary relief to the victims.  In addition to monetary relief one consent decree provides that the lender will repair any negative credit report entries related to the allegedly wrongful foreclosures and will not pursue any remaining amounts owed under the mortgages. 

The Civil Rights Division’s SCRA investigations have, according to the DOJ, resulted in litigation or settlements enforcing SCRA’s provisions for termination of residential lease agreements, protection against enforcement of storage liens on towed vehicles without court orders, reduction of interest rates to six percent on credit obligations, and a prohibition against paying pre-payment penalties on mortgage loans when a service member must move for military service. 

Additional information about the DOJ’s enforcement of the SCRA and the other laws protecting servicemembers is available at www.servicemembers.gov  or by phone at 1-800-896-7743.

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in August that a former contract security officer at the Willacy Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas pleaded guilty to engaging in sexual abuse of a female detainee under his supervision and control.  According to the DOJ, the former security officer was assigned to pick up meal trays from the various housing “pods” inside the Willacy Detention Center in Raymondville.  When he encountered the victim outside one of the pods as she dropped off empty trays from her pod, the officer pulled the victim into the guard’s bathroom located adjacent to the victim’s pod and engaged in intercourse with her.  The DOJ said that the female detainee immediately reported the sexual abuse to two individuals, including a former female contract security officer supervising her pod.  See, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/August/11-crt-1016.html .

Whether law enforcement sexual abuse of detainees or arrestees occurs in Texas or elsewhere, people subjected to law enforcement officer sexual abuse may contact the United States Department of Justice or a lawyer.  In this case, the sexual misconduct charge was investigated by agents from the Department of Homeland Security in Harlingen, Texas and prosecuted by Assistant U. S. Attorneys in Houston.

On August 10, 2011, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it reached a settlement with Summit Steel Fabricators Inc. in Houston, resolving allegations that the company engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against non-citizens in the employment eligibility verification process.  In a Press Release at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/August/11-crt-1034.html , the DOJ stated that the company had a policy of requiring newly hired workers who are not U. S. citizens to present specific documentation, such as a permanent resident card or resident alien card, even if they had already presented other documents sufficient to establish their employment eligibility under federal law.  U. S. citizens, by contrast, were not required to present any specific documents.  An Assistant Attorney General was quoted in the Press Release as saying: “Employers have a responsibility to conduct the employment eligibility verification process in a non-discriminatory manner, and all workers have the right to look for work without facing discrimination based on their citizenship status.”  For more information about protections against employment discrimination under federal immigration law, one may contact the DOJ Civil Right’s Division Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices at 1-800-255-7688.

The U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in August that two New Mexico men pleaded guilty to federal hate crime charges related to a racially motivated assault on a developmentally disabled man of Navajo descent.  See, http://www.justicec.gov/opa/pr/2011/August/11-crt-1064.html .  A third man pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit a federal hate crime.  The three were indicted originally for violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Shepard/Byrd Act).  During the August plea hearing, two defendants admitted taking the victim to one defendant’s apartment, which was adorned in racist paraphernalia, including a Nazi flag and a woven dream catcher with a swastika in it.  As the victim slept, the defendants defaced his body with ink drawings, and when he awoke, coerced the victim into agreeing to be branded with a wire hanger that burned a swastika impression into the victim’s skin.  Further, the defendants defaced the victim’s body with white supremacist and anti-Native American symbols, including shaving a swastika in the back of the victim’s head.    A DOJ attorney quoted in the DOJ Press Releases stated, in part, as foolows:  “Today’s guilty pleas demonstrate the law enforcement community’s resolve to bring to justice anyone who victimizes a person because of the color of their skin or ethnic heritage.”

The U. S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced in an August 22, 2011 News Release that a Los Angeles based Japanese restaurant group has agreed to pay back wages of $144,721 to 66 employees following an investigation by the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division that disclosed systemic violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime, minimum wage and record-keeping provisions.  In its News Release at http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20111174.htm , the DOL stated investigators conducted interviews and pay roll record reviews, finding that dishwashers, prep cooks and cooks worked an average of 45 to 50 hours per week and were paid “straight time” wages for all hours, rather than time and one-half their regular rates for all overtime as required under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  In this regard, the FLSA requires that covered employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 for all hours worked, plus time and one-half their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 per week.  Additionally, the law requires employers to maintain accurate time and payroll records, and prohibits retaliation against employees who exercise their rights under the law. 

For more information about the FLSA, information is available at http://www.dol.gov/whd/ .

Following their January 2011 guilty pleas to conspiring to violate the civil rights of an interracial couple by burning a cross near their home in Louisiana, a federal judge has sentenced three people involved in the cross burning incident, according to the United States Department of Justice.  During the guilty pleas, it was admitted that in October 2008 the three men agreed to build, erect and burn a cross near the home of their cousin, her African American boyfriend, her 11-year-old son, and their grandmother who was believed to approve of the interracial relationship.  The cross was built, transported near the victims’ home and lit on fire.  When they learned the FBI would investigate, the conspirators removed the burned cross, disassembled it and hid it in the woods.  An attorney with the Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division said, “The defendants used an unmistakable symbol of hate to threaten a member of their own family simply because of her boyfriend’s race.”  See, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/April/11-crt-543.html  

Victims of hate crimes and incidents such as cross burnings, which historically have been symbols of racial hatred, may contact the United States Department of Justice to report the crime and request action.

On May 10, 2011, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that two Arkansas men pleaded guilty in a Little Rock, Arkansas federal court to charges related to their involvement in the firebombing of the house of an interracial couple.  According to the DOJ, the two men admitted that on the night of January 14, 2011, while at party in Arkansas, they and two other men devised a plan to firebomb an interracial couple’s home.  They then drove to the home, and, upon arrival, constructed three Molotov Cocktails and threw them at the house.  In addition, the DOJ said that the couple was subjected to racial slurs and threatened with future violence if they did not leave Arkansas.  Though not physically injured themselves, the victims’ home did sustain some damage during the firebombing incident.  The two men pled guilty to one count of conspiracy against rights and one count of criminal violation of housing rights.  See, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/May/11-crt-599.html .

The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division announced on March 10, 2011 that a Bexar County, Texas corrections officer was charged in a two-count federal indictment with violating the civil rights of two detainees assaulted at the Bexar County Detention Center.  According to the DOJ Civil Rights Division Press Release at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/March/11-crt-308.html , the civil rights case is being investigated by the FBI’s San Antonio Division with assistance from the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office and is being prosecuted by an Assistant U. S. Attorney as well as a Civil Rights Division Attorney.  An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence of guilt, and the defendant is presumed innocent unles and until proven guilty.

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that an Arlington, Texas man pleaded guilty in February 2011 to a hate crime stemming from the ethnically motivated arson of a children’s playground at a mosque in Arlington during July of 2010.  The DOJ said that the man pleaded guilty to damaging religious property in violation of federal hate crime laws before a U. S. Federal District Judge in Fort Worth, Texas.  According to the DOJ Press Release, the man admitted to setting fire to playground equipment at the mosque as part of a series of ethnically motivated acts directed at individuals of Arab or Middle Eastern descent associated with the mosque.  He further admitted to shouting racial and ethnic slurs at individuals of Arab or Middle Eastern descent at the mosque on multiple occasions.  As stated in the Press Release, this is the 50th prosecution of post September 11, 2001 backlash against Arab and Muslim Americans.  See, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/February/11-crt-228.html .

Hate crimes may be reported to law enforcement, a United States Attorney and the Department of Justice whether they occur in Arlington, Fort Worth, Houston or elsewhere.  In this case, the hate crime incident was investigated jointly by the Arlington Police Department and the FBI, and is being prosecuted by a trial attorney with the DOJ Civil Rights Division and an Assistant U. S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.  People subjected to hate crime misconduct may also contact an attorney to determine whether a hate crime civil rights lawsuit is appropriate under the particular facts and circumstances of the potential hate crime case.

Sentencing in the Arlington hate crime case was set to occur July 11, 2011.

Attorneys with the United States Department of Justice announced in a May 13, 2010 news release posted at http://www.justice.gov that a federal jury in Lexington, Kentucky returned seven guilty verdicts against two former corrections officers with the Lexington-Fayette County Urban Detention Center (”FCUDC”).  According to the Department of Justice (”DOJ”) news release, the defendants were convicted for conspiring to abuse arrestees at the FCUDC, as well as for actually abusing arrestees and for obstructing justice by lying about the abuse.  As further stated in the news release, evidence at trial established that the defendants conspired with each other and with other officers who worked on their shift at the jail to physically assault inmates and to write false reports to cover it up.  Before trial began, three co-defendants, all former employees of the jail, pleaded guilty to federal charges connected to this case.