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My outstanding team at the Attorney General’s Office has been working hard on your behalf over the past month. We continue to secure major victories on behalf of Washingtonian’s rights — and lead on some of the most important issues in our state. Here are a few of the highlights — all from the last month! Collecting DNA from registered sex offenders: My office is committed to eliminating the backlog of untested rape kits, and also holistically improving our state’s response to sexual assault. As part of that commitment, we set out to identify every registered Washington sex offender who was lawfully required to provide DNA, but never provided it. We did that, and then set out to ensure these individuals comply with this critical part of their sentence. After months of coordination with local law enforcement, this month we completed this project. The result: 372 new DNA profiles have been entered into CODIS, a nationwide DNA database. Several of the samples connected to unsolved cases, and three new investigations have already been opened based on our work.
Taking on the Big Lie: This month I secured our latest victory against those who seek to undermine confidence in our elections by pushing the lie that the 2020 election was “stolen.” A group called the Washington Election Integrity Coalition United sued Governor Inslee, pushing a baseless conspiracy about election fraud. We won the lawsuit, and upon my request, the Washington Supreme Court issued sanctions against this group for abusing the legal process through its frivolous lawsuit. The court ordered this group and their attorney to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of defeating their lawsuit. We will continue to defend our democracy from these attacks.
Winning financial restitution for Washington taxpayers: Intuit/TurboTax deceived Washingtonians by charging them for a service that should have been free. We won more than 100,000 Washingtonians a total of $3.75 million. We will never stop fighting for low-income and middle-class Washingtonians who are cheated out of their hard-earned pay.
Protecting Washingtonians from illegal corporate collusion: Sometimes illegal collusion among corporations you’ve never heard of can increase the cost of living. Last fall, I filed an antitrust lawsuit against 19 chicken producers that illegally colluded to act like a monopoly and fix prices. We’re starting to knock down the dominoes on this conspiracy.
Taking on Big Tech to protect Washingtonians’ privacy: This month, a King County Superior Court judge rejected Google’s motion to dismiss our data privacy lawsuit. Google is trying to evade accountability for unlawfully and deceptively tracking Washingtonians’ locations even after they told the corporation to stop. It will not work.
Combating fraud and recovering stolen dollars: In May, my office recovered another $6.6 million — for a total of more than $18 million — of the money stolen from the state Employment Security Department as part of nationwide unemployment fraud that impacted at least a dozen states. This is wholly separate from the multi-agency federal law enforcement task force investigation resulting in multiple arrests of Nigerian citizens allegedly connected to the fraud. My office has been assisting federal efforts, while also searching for additional ways to use our authority. No attorney general has been more aggressive working to return these stolen dollars.
Defending Washington’s ban on youth conversion therapy: My legal team appeared before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to defend Washington’s ban on conversion therapy on minors. Conversion therapy premises that there is something wrong with being gay, and it can cause serious harm to a youth’s psychological well-being. We won at the federal trial court, and we will continue working to defend the law.
Combating the opioid epidemic: We recently announced another win in our opioid litigation initiative — this time against a manufacturer of a generic version of oxycodone. We have now recovered more than $730 million in resources to address Washington’s opioid crisis.
That’s just one month! We will continue to seek justice and protect the health and safety of all the people in Washington State. |
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Sincerely,
Bob Ferguson |
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Bob Ferguson
Dear Friends,