Some residents of northern Indiana on Thursday learned about an important part of the federal government that many of their neighbors may be clueless about: the local U.S. Attorney’s office.

The Northern District of Indiana U.S. Attorney, David Capp, spoke to the Calumet Chapter of the League of Women Voters about how his office handles cases, including public corruption prosecutions, The Post-Tribune in Gary, Ind., reported. Hammond resident Albertine Dent was of the members of the women voters group who learned something new.

“A lot of people really have no clue about what the U.S. Attorney’s Office does,” Dent told the newspaper. “I thought it was really interesting how far back they can go to prosecute.” (The answer is five years for most  federal crimes; for murder and a few other very serious charges there is no statute of limitations.)

Elizabeth Kurella of Hammond also acquired some knowledge about how citizens can help the U.S. Attorney’s office. Capp told residents to give tips to his office about wrongdoing whether the crimes are “dealing with $5,000 or $5 million,” according to The Post-Tribune.

“You always wonder when you should call and how we can turn over rocks to get information,” Kurella told the newspaper.

Jon DeGuilio (Peoples Bank)

The Senate confirmed by voice vote Tuesday a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana to be a U.S. district judge on the region’s federal court.

Jon DeGuilio served as the U.S. Attorney in the Hammond, Ind.-based office from 1993 to 1999. He is currently the executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for NorthWest Indiana Bancorp and executive vice president for Peoples Bank. (Read more about DeGuilio here.)

President Barack Obama nominated him for the position in January.

The Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed two U.S. Attorney nominees by voice vote Thursday morning.

They are:

David A. Capp (DOJ)

– David A. Capp (Northern District of Indiana): The Northern District of Indiana interim U.S. Attorney was tapped to be the leader of the Hammond, Ind.-based office on Dec. 23. He would succeed Joseph S. Van Bokkelen, who stepped down as U.S. Attorney in 2007. Read more about Capp here.

Anne Tompkins (Alston and Bird)

– Anne M. Tompkins (Western District of North Carolina): The Charlotte, N.C., lawyer also was nominated on Dec. 23. She would succeed Gretchen Shappert as the Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney. Shappert resigned as U.S. Attorney in March 2009. Since then Ed Ryan has filled the job. Read more about Tompkins here.

The panel has now approved 40 U.S. Attorney nominees, 36 of whom have already won Senate confirmation. The committee has yet to schedule votes for another 16 would-be U.S. Attorneys.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will take up President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the Northern District of Indiana U.S. Attorney’s Office at its Thursday meeting.

David A. Capp (DOJ)

David A. Capp was tapped for the U.S. Attorney nomination on Dec. 23. He is already the interim U.S. Attorney for the Hammond, Ind.-based office, where he has served in various positions since 1985. Read more about him here.

He would succeed Joseph S. Van Bokkelen, who stepped down as U.S. Attorney in 2007. Capp has led the office since Van Bokkelen’s resignation.

The panel will also consider Western District of North Carolina U.S. Attorney nominee Anne M. Tompkins at its meeting this week.

The committee has yet to schedule votes for another 16 would-be U.S. Attorneys. The panel has approved 38 U.S. Attorney nominees, 36 of whom have already won Senate confirmation.

David A. Capp (DOJ)

David A. Capp (University of Wisconsin, Valparaiso University School of Law) is nominated to replace Joseph S. Van Bokkelen as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana. Van Bokkelen resigned in 2007 to become a judge in the district and Capp has been interim or acting U.S. attorney since then.

His vitals:

• Born in Dover, N.J., in 1950.
• Attended but did not receive degrees from Indiana University School of Law and Indiana University Northwest in Gary, Ind.
• Has worked in the district’s U.S. Attorney’s office since November 1985.
• Was a part-time, adjunct professor at Valparaiso University School of Law in Valparaiso, Ind., from August 1988 to May 1994.
• Worked at Cohen and Thiros in Merrillville, Ind., from May 1977 to November 1985.
• Was a part-time public defender in the Lake County Courts in Crown Point, Ind., in 1983
• Worked as a part-time code enforcement attorney in the city attorney’s office in Gary, Ind., from January 1979 to July 1982.
• Was a teaching assistant at Valparaiso University School of Law from August 1976 to May 1977.
• Worked as a law clerk at Lund and Wieser in Gary, Ind., from February 1976 to April 1977.
• Was a research assistant at Mathematica in Princeton, N.J., from June 1975 to February 1976.
• Worked as a research assistant at Indiana University Northwest from May 1973 to June 1975.
• Was a laborer at United States Steel Corporation in Gary, Ind., from November 1972 to May 1973.
• Worked as a janitor at the University of Wisconsin Physical Plant in Madison, Wis., from February 1971 to August 1972 and in October 1972.
• Has tried approximately 60 cases to verdict, serving as chief counsel on 50 of those cases and associated counsel on 10 of the cases.
• Has assets valued at $2.1 million mostly from his Thrift Savings Plan. He has liabilities of $206,000 from car loan and mortgage. His net worth is $1.9 million.

Click here for his full Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

UPDATE: On his Office of Government Ethics financial disclosure Capp reported owning undeveloped land in LaVeta, Colo., and Beverly Shores, Ind. On his Senate Judiciary financial disclosure he reports assets of $2,124,900 and liabilities of $206,300 for a net worth of $1,918,600.

Two men allegedly plotted to murder an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois and a Drug Enforcement Administration agent based in Chicago, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Indiana, which is handling the case.

Last week, the FBI arrested Frank Caira and Jack Mann, who have been charged with solicitation to commit violence against another person. Read the Caira complaint here and the Mann complaint here. The targets of the plot were not named in court documents and were identified only as Victim 1 and Victim 2.

We reported earlier this month that threats against federal prosecutors rose during the last decade. Justice Department officials have pledged to address Justice Department Office of Inspector General concerns about the safety of prosecutors.

The alleged murder scheme stems from a drug case, which was against Caira, who Mann was allegedly trying to help, according to court documents.

Caira and Mann allegedly intended to a hire a person, who wanted to be paid about 4 kilograms of cocaine for the murders, according to court documents. The person contacted the FBI about the alleged plot after he couldn’t secure a down payment in cocaine from the men, according to court records. The person is also unnamed in court documents and is only indentified as CW1.

The Associated Press first reported the story today.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) has urged President Barack Obama to nominate a Clinton administration U.S. Attorney to be a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, The Indianapolis Star reported yesterday.

Jon DeGuilio (Peoples Bank)

Former U.S. Attorney Jon DeGuilio, who served in the Northern District from 1993 to 1999, was picked after consultation with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana. Bayh also recommended that the president tap state superior court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt and U.S. Magistrate Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson for seats on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.

“Mr. DeGuilio, Judge Magnus-Stinson and Judge Pratt have each shown themselves to be deserving of the public trust,” Bayh said in a news release. “They have demonstrated the highest ethical standards and a firm commitment to applying our country’s laws fairly and faithfully. They know their job is to interpret our laws, not write them.”

DeGuilio is currently the executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for NorthWest Indiana Bancorp and executive vice president for Peoples Bank. Read more about him here.

The Justice Department sends out several news releases each day to members of the media lauding successful prosecutions and new initiatives. But one e-mail yesterday told reporters that a Northern District of Indiana grand jury indictment “sucked.”

The full subject line said: “FEDERAL GRAND JURY RETURNS INDICTMENT ON INTERNET BOMB THREATS — good luck, this one sucked.”

Several minutes later the Justice Department sent out an e-mail with a revised subject line that didn’t include the apparent head’s up to reporters.

DOJ spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler explained to The Associated Press: ”The unfortunate comment, put there by a junior press aide, referred to the difficulty in formatting the press release, not to its content.” She told the AP that the comment was meant to go to a press office editor and not to the media.

We can’t find a link to the news release, so we are reprinting it below:

United States Attorney David Capp

Northern District of Indiana

_______________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: MARY HATTON

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2009 PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER

HTTP://WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/INN/ DIRECT: (219) 937-5500

FEDERAL GRAND JURY RETURNS INDICTMENT ON INTERNET BOMB THREATS

Hammond, Ind.—The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana announced that a three-count indictment was returned against Ashton Lundeby for his role in Internet bomb and related threats directed to Purdue University, Indiana University/Purdue University at Fort Wayne, Ind., and numerous other educational institutions throughout the country.

Lundeby, 16, of Oxford, N.C., was arrested by the FBI at his home in Oxford on March 6, 2009.  A federal search warrant was also executed at that time. Lundeby was arrested pursuant to a juvenile criminal complaint filed in the Northern District of Indiana.  Lundeby was ordered detained and remains in federal custody.  Under federal law, juvenile proceedings are sealed.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a motion seeking to proceed against Lundeby as if he were an adult.  The U.S. District Court in South Bend granted that motion and this indictment followed.  An indictment is merely a charging document and all persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.

The indictment alleges an extensive conspiracy involving Lundeby and unnamed other individuals to transmit bomb threats through the internet.  Lundeby, often using the pseudonym “Tyrone,” and his co-conspirators used Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) software to set-up large-scale conference calls across the Internet.  In addition, online computer gaming accounts were used so participants could listen and observe the police response in real-time.  Lundeby and his associates charged fees to listen and observe.  Lundeby and his associates used other software to disguise their true identities and the origin of the calls.

Lundeby and other co-conspirators would often target institutions that used Web-based video surveillance cameras. They would log into those cameras, call in a bomb threat, and watch the police response in real-time.  This illegal conduct is known as “swatting”, making false reports of an emergency to a police department for the purpose of causing a law enforcement response to the non-existent emergency.  Lundeby conducted this activity from his personal computer at his home in Oxford, N.C.

The indictment alleges that on Jan. 31, 2009, Lundeby and others directed calls to authorities stating that a bomb had been placed on the campus of Indiana University/Purdue University in Fort Wayne, Ind.

On Feb. 15, 2009, Lundeby and others directed multiple calls to Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., stating that bombs had been placed on the campus.  A follow-up call to Purdue University was made by a co-conspirator claiming to have seen someone place devices onto computers located in the mechanical engineering building.

On March 3, 2009, members of the conspiracy again targeted Purdue University. During this call they identified a person in the computer science building as being armed with a firearm.

In addition to the threats in the Northern District of Indiana, the indictment alleges that Lundeby and co-conspirators:

• Directed bomb threats on Feb. 15, 2009, to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C.
• Directed bomb threats on Feb. 21, 2009, to Florida State University, Tallahassee, Fla.
• Directed bomb threats on Feb. 24, 2009, to Clemson University, Clemson,

S.C.

• Directed bomb threats on Feb. 24-25, 2009, to Boston College, Boston, Mass.
• Directed bomb threats to FBI offices located in Pueblo, CO, and Monroe, La.

The indictment also alleges that as part of the conspiracy conspirators offered, for a nominal fee, to make bomb threat calls – often to high schools – to cause closures.  The indictment alleges that bomb threats were made on or about March 4, 2009, to the following schools:

• West Hempfield Middle School, Irwin, Penn.
• North Farmington H.S., Farmington Hills, Mich.
• Mill Valley H.S., Shawnee, Kan.
• Hamden H.S., Hamden, Conn.
• Glynn Academy H.S., Brunswick, Ga.

Specifically, Lundeby is charged in count one of the indictment with conspiring, from mid-2008 through March 6, 2009, to make bomb threats and conveying false information through interstate commerce.  Lundeby is charged in count two with a substantive violation for the Jan. 31, 2009, threat to Indiana University/Purdue University at Fort Wayne and in count three for the Feb. 15, 2009, threat to Purdue University.

This indictment was the result of an extensive investigation by the FBI, the FBI’s Cybercrime Squad based in Indianapolis, the Tippecanoe County Prosecutor’s Office and the Purdue University Police Department.

U.S. Attorney David Capp praised the cooperative investigative effort here stating, “To properly investigate a crime of this scope and magnitude requires sophisticated technical expertise as well as old fashioned police work.  I am grateful for the substantial assistance received from the Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Patrick Harrington and his staff and from Chief John Cox and the Purdue University Police Department.”

Capp also praised the excellent assistance his office received from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of North Carolina.  Capp concluded by stating, “This type of activity on the Internet will not be tolerated.  No matter where you are located, conduct like this will be thoroughly investigated and, where appropriate, presented for indictment.”

This case has been assigned to and will be handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth M. Hays in the South Bend office of the U.S. Attorney.

Lundeby will be arraigned before Magistrate Judge Nuechterlein on Friday, July 10.  The specific sentence in each case to be imposed upon conviction will be determined by the judge after a consideration of federal sentencing statutes and the federal sentencing guidelines.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office emphasized that an indictment is merely an allegation and that all persons charged are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.