An Arizona tribal leader was sentenced yesterday for charges stemming from the wrongful acquisition of nearly $225,000 from the Justice Department Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, according to a DOJ news release.

Evelyn James, a former president of the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, received a two year sentence and a $75,000 fine for making false statements, stealing from a tribal government receiving federal funds and laundering money, the news release said.

From 1996 to 2003, she sent phony statements and records to DOJ for COPS grants to hire three police officers, according to court documents. She never hired any officers with the funds from the DOJ program that local, state and tribal law enforcement agencies use to hire officers, buy equipment and improve police training, the news release said.

In 2005, the former tribal president stole nearly $300,000 from her tribe’s bank account — which held the COPS funds — by writing checks, according to the news release.

James will begin serving her two year sentence on Jan. 15, according to the news release.

The Department of Justice top leadership is joining Vice President Joe Biden in Philadelphia on Tuesday to hold another big press event announcing law enforcement stimulus grants, this time in the presidential battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Last month, the venue was Michigan. Read our previous report here.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli will represent the DOJ at the Philly news conference, where they will appear alongside embattled Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey. Polls show Corzine, who is running for reelection in November, trailing his Republican challenger, former New Jersey U.S. Attorney Chris Christie.

The Associated Press’s Devlin Barrett got the scoop on where the money will go in advance of the official annoucement. Barrett led with the news that New York, Seattle, Pittsburgh and Houston had been left out of the COPS program sweepstakes, in which the federal government picks up salary and benefits for local police for three years.

But we found it equally interesting that places like Mobile, Ala., and Salt Lake City, Utah, are getting COPS funds. Mobile is the home town of the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, while another Senate Judiciary Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch, is from near Salt Lake. Both Sessions and Hatch have announced they will oppose President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

According to The AP, around 1000 localities are getting COPS money to pay for 4,699 officers.

The roughly 1,000 places getting COPS aid also include: Mobile, Ala., Mesa, Ariz., Tulare County, Calif., Monroe County, Fla., the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Baltimore, Providence, R.I., Salt Lake City, Utah, and Huntington, W.Va

Under the COPS program, the federal government pays the officers’ salary and benefits for three years, after which the local government is responsible for the costs.

Also slated to appear at Tuesday’s press conference are Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter — Democrats all. The Philadelphia police commissioner, Charles Ramsey, who is a former District of Columbia police chief, will also be there.

The $787 billion stimulus package, known as the  American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, was signed into law in February. It contained $4 billion for the Department of Justice to distribute to local and tribal law enforcement and the COPS program.

Funding for the Justice Department Community Oriented Policing Services was at its lowest during the Bush administration but it received a boost from Recovery Act money this year, according to a DOJ Office of Inspector General report released today.

The COPS program was established in 1994 to help state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies hire officers, purchase new equipment and train cops. After funding topped out at $1.6 billion in 1998, the yearly COPS allocation went as low as $220 million in 2006, according to the report. In addition, most of the Bush-era COPS grants were used for new equipment and methamphetamine initiatives, the report said.

This year, the COPS program is on the rebound. President Obama requested $761 million for the program on top of the $1 billion COPS already received from the Recovery Act. The DOJ also created the COPS Hiring Recovery Program to help hire more police officers.

“The nature and amount of the Recovery Act funding represents a significant change from COPS’ recent grant program history, both in the amount of funding and in the program to be implemented,” the report said.

The IG report did, however, make some suggestions. The IG recommendations come first, followed by comments from COPS Acting Director Timothy J. Quinn in italics.

-We believe COPS should consider developing guidance to help grant administrators identify the activities that should be provided through contracts rather than through grants or cooperative agreements.

[W]ith regard to awarding funds for technical assistance and training activities, a grant or cooperative agreement is typically the legally appropriate funding instrument, with a cooperative agreement allowing for COPS to have substantial involvement in the assistance/training content or agenda.

-We believe that grantee compliance could be improved by collecting more information from grantees and through requiring high-risk grantees to demonstrate that they understand key grant-related responsibilities.

In addition to the general government-wide clarifications and assurances, the COPS Office ensured that the COPS Hiring Recovery Program application contained specific certifications pertaining to the award requirements regarding the nonsupplanting of federal funds, retention of officer positions following the conclusion of federal funding, and payment of only entry-level salaries and fringe benefits for officers.

-We also observed that COPS could improve upon its ability to identify high-risk grantees by increasing the number of and providing more guidance to the components that participate in the grantee vetting process.

Every vetting list includes the contact information of a COPS staff member available to answer questions, and work closely with components on their re5ponses, and who can conduct further probing of the information provided, if necessary. In additi0n, COPS continues to add information to our website with up-t0-date and relevant materials concerning the vetting process. As a pan of this endeavor, COPS will be posting Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) pertaining to vetting on our website, which will provide further guidance on the vetting process to better inform components about this activity and the ramifications of their responses.

-COPS could improve its grant monitoring efforts by developing recurring and mandatory training programs for all grantees, especially those that may be at higher risk for compliance issues, and by using Internet-based methods to implement that training.

The COPS Office agrees with the [Office of Inspector General] that the use of the Internet is an efficient and cost effective means for implementing grantee training. As noted previously, in preparation for the COPS Hiring Recovery Program, COPS has awarded funding to establish a CHRP “eLearn Center” to deliver both grants management training and community’ policing training to grantee agencies.

-COPS also could improve grantee monitoring by increasing its information sharing with [Office of Justice Programs] and [Office on Violence Against Women], the other DOJ grant administering components.

[B]ecause the COPS Management System (CMS) utilized for award administration is not a web-based system, access to CMS is only available within the physical location of the COPS Office or via remote access through the Justice Secure Remote Access (JSRA) connection using a COPS-issued laptop computer. However, any and all grantee information within the system can be provided as customized reports to [OJP Office of Audit, Assessment, and Management] and [OJP Office of the Chief Financial Officer] upon request by either office, and such requests are processed on a routine and timely basis.

-We also believe that COPS grant program performance could be improved by tracking outputs related to the individual grant programs, and by providing grant recipients with assistance and guidance specific to the individual grant programs.

[T]hree performance measures specific to the Recovery Act have been created by the COPS Office and approved by [Office of Management and Budget]. These measures — the average community policing capacity of COPS Hiring Recovery Program grantees, the number of jobs created, and the number of jobs preserved — will be measured through quarterly progress reports assessing the number of new sworn officer jobs created and/or preserved, as well as through an annual survey that gauges the community policing capacity implementation rating of grantees.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) introduced legislation in Congress today that would direct more Community Oriented Policing Services grants to five cities that have been hit hard by crime and budget deficits.

Oakland, Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit and Memphis, Tenn. would be able to get COPS funds that increase their police forces by five to 10 percent. The bill would also allow 15 yet-to-be-determined cities to apply for more grants to fight violent crime. Funding would be based on the amount of poverty, gang activity, drug trafficking and unemployment in those cities.

The Oakland City Council cut its police department personnel budget by $13.4 million to help battle a $83 million budget deficit. The city requested more than $67 million in COPS grants, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

“It is common sense – more police officers on our streets mean less crime,” Boxer said in a statement. “As cities with high violent crime rates deal with budget cuts, we must ensure that local law enforcement officials can fight crime and keep our communities safe.”

Local, state and tribal law enforcement agencies have applied for more than $8.3 billion in COPS funding to hire new officers, buy new equipment and improve police training.

The American Recovery Act set aside $1 billion for COPS grants. The DOJ budget passed by the House has almost $300 million for the program with $350,000 earmarked for the Detroit and $250,000 earmarked for Oakland. The Senate Appropriations Committee version has almost $660 million for COPS grants with $1.3 million earmarked for Oakland and $1.5 million earmarked for Baltimore.

Farhan Daredia contributed to this report.