The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona has achieved a notable victory for victims of financial crimes, successfully recouping over $3.6 million in restitution from convicted fraudster Joseph Nicholas Gagliano, providing full compensation for his fraudulent actions. Gagliano's scheme involved deceitful tactics to secure Small Business Administration-backed loans and modifications by falsifying information regarding his identity and financial status, leading to his conviction and sentencing to prison time in 2013. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Gagliano's extensive losses affected lenders and the taxpayer-backed SBA, prompting the court to order the restitution.

Through concerted efforts that included navigating an array of commercial transactions and pinpointing assets, the attorney's office executed its statutory mandate to retrieve funds using judgment collection techniques, Gagliano ultimately acquiescing to a repayment arrangement, thus enabling the attorney's office to secure the embezzled funds in totality. In this regard, victims of Gagliano's crime—among them, the SBA itself—have been made whole for the financial damage incurred, an outcome lauded as a testament to the efficacy of the Financial Litigation Program (FLP) tasked with coercing criminal monetary penalties compliance.

The pivotal role of the FLP, a unit focused on the enforcement of criminal-related financial impositions such as fines and restitution for crimes against the federal government, has been underscored yet again by this successful operation. The FLP applies an assortment of federal and state law mechanisms to enforce the fulfillment of obligations from debtor's unexempt assets, demonstrating an unwavering resolve to uphold financial justice for victims. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kevin Rapp and Vincent Creta from the District of Arizona office in Phoenix, were integral to the proceedings, with Rapp managing the prosecutorial side and Creta overseeing the financial litigation that led to this outcome.