The chairman of the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians surrendered this afternoon to federal agents after being indicted on federal charges of accepting a quarter million dollars in bribes from tribal vendors and concealing income from the IRS.

Robert Salgado Sr., 67, was arrested by special agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he arrived at United States District Court in Riverside early this afternoon. Salgado agreed to surrender after being informed this morning that he had been charged in a 36-count indictment returned last week by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. Salgado is expected to make his initial court appearance this afternoon in Riverside federal court.
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The chairman of the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians surrendered this afternoon to federal agents after being indicted on federal charges of accepting a quarter million dollars in bribes from tribal vendors and concealing income from the IRS.

Robert Salgado Sr., 67, was arrested by special agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he arrived at United States District Court in Riverside early this afternoon. Salgado agreed to surrender after being informed this morning that he had been charged in a 36-count indictment returned last week by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. Salgado is expected to make his initial court appearance this afternoon in Riverside federal court.
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Cases Involve More Than $26 Million in Fraudulent Medicare Claims

Twenty defendants, most of them residing in the Los Angeles area, have been charged in seven separate cases with participating in Medicare fraud schemes that resulted in over $26 million in fraudulent bills to the Medicare program.
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Father Previously Sentenced to 9 Years in Prison in $30+ Million Scheme

Two daughters of a Rialto man who previously was sent to prison for crimes related to his fraudulent operation of an income tax preparation business have both been sentenced to 72 months in federal prison for their roles in a scheme to defraud the Internal Revenue Service out of more than $30 million.
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Federal Prison Sentence to Run Consecutively to 16-Year State Prison Term

An Ecuadorian citizen who lived in Los Angeles was sentenced today to 25 years in federal prison for producing and possessing child pornography, a sentence that will run consecutively to a 16-year term the defendant received in state court for sexually abusing a young girl.
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Special Agents with the FBI arrested a Chicago-area man Friday night on federal charges of interstate stalking for allegedly taking nude videos of a television broadcaster and posting those videos on the Internet after attempting to sell the videos to a celebrity website.

Michael David Barrett, 48, of Westmont, Illinois, was taken into custody without incident at Chicago O’Hare Airport after being named in a criminal complaint filed late Friday afternoon in United States District Court in Los Angeles. Barrett made his initial appearance in United States District Court in Chicago on Saturday morning and was ordered to appear in federal court in Los Angeles on October 23. This morning, Barrett was released on bond.
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An Orange County lawyer agreed in court papers filed today to plead guilty to two felony charges related to a scheme in which he took more than $2 million awarded to employees of a company he sued in a class action and lost almost all of the funds while day trading in the stock market.

Sandeep Baweja, 39, of Irvine, was named in a criminal information filed late yesterday in United States District Court in Los Angeles. The information charges Baweja with one count of wire fraud and one count of obstruction of justice. Today, prosecutors filed a plea agreement in which Baweja agreed to plead guilty to the two charges, which carry a statutory maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison.
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In First Jury Verdict of its Kind, Construction Companies Ordered to Pay Nearly $29 Million for Losses Suffered by National Forest

A federal jury in Los Angeles this afternoon ordered two construction companies to pay nearly $36.5 million to reimburse the government for costs associated with a massive wildfire near Santa Clarita in 2002.
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In what is believed to be the longest sentence ever handed down in a white-collar case in this district, the mastermind of a Riverside-based Ponzi scheme that collected well over $60 million from hundreds of investors – and caused more than $39 million in losses – was sentenced today to 100 years in federal prison.

Richard Monroe Harkless, 65, who lived in Riverside when he ran the scheme through a company he called MX Factors from 2000 until late 2003, was sentenced this morning by United States District Judge Virginia A. Phillips in federal court in Riverside.
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A Fontana woman has been sentenced to one year in federal prison after pleading guilty in a scheme in which she embezzled nearly a quarter million dollars from a Los Angeles non-profit that provides shelter to homeless women and children.

Barbara Alvarado, 32, was sentenced Monday afternoon by United States District Judge Christina A. Snyder in Los Angeles. In addition to the 12-month prison term, Judge Snyder ordered Alvarado to serve three years of supervised release, which will include one year of home detention.
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