Crimes and Trials News

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas grand jury on Tuesday charged the jailed polygamist leader of a breakaway Mormon sect with sexually assaulting a child and indicted five followers after state officials raided a polygamist ranch near Eldorado in April.

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Rap star DMX has been indicted in Arizona on charges that he used a false identity to try and avoid paying medical expenses incurred during a hospital visit, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

NEW YORK - A judge signaled Tuesday that he would order the release in coming months of much of the secret testimony in the notorious espionage case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

BOSTON - A Franciscan priest from New York pleaded guilty to raping three teenage boys during overnight trips to Boston in the 1970s and 1980s and was ordered Tuesday to serve time on probation.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A San Francisco jury convicted a 24-year-old man on misdemeanor charges on Monday for pulling Elie Wiesel from a hotel elevator in an incident the Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel Peace Prize recipient thought was a kidnapping attempt.

NEW YORK - Federal prosecutors have decided not to seek criminal charges against the Rev. Al Sharpton over his chronic tax problems, his lawyers said Tuesday.

ELDORADO, Texas - A Texas grand jury indicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs and four of his followers Tuesday on charges of felony sexual assault of a child. Another was indicted for failing to report child abuse.

PITTSBURGH - A woman accused of slicing open a pregnant woman's belly and taking her baby was obsessed with getting an infant and even had hallucinations of hearing babies cry after a February 1990 miscarriage, according to court records.

ELDORADO, Texas (AFP) - The jailed leader of a polygamist sect and five other men linked to a Texas compound raided earlier this year have been indicted on child sexual assault and other charges, officials said.

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - One of 38 people charged in a global crime ring that allegedly stole personal information from unsuspecting Internet users pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal fraud charge.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Testimony that could help clear executed American communist Ethel Rosenberg of charges she helped pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union in the 1950s will remain secret, a judge ruled on Tuesday.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Prosecutors said Tuesday they want a 78-year-old man committed to a mental hospital after he was found incompetent to stand trial for killing two South Carolina law officers.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan, has pleaded not guilty at the opening of the first trial before a special "war on terror" military tribunal at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials said.

LAS VEGAS - A jury found a 37-year-old San Francisco rap music figure guilty in the slaying of a Kansas City rival in what authorities called a West Coast versus Midwest rap war.

FARGO, N.D. - A former psychologist who evaluated sex offenders at North Dakota's state mental hospital faces federal charges of possession of child pornography.

NEW YORK - A disbarred Manhattan lawyer who pleaded guilty to statutory rape has sued the American Express Co. for giving police credit card information he says led to his capture.

SAN FRANCISCO - A jury in San Francisco has convicted a 24-year-old man of accosting Holocaust survivor and scholar Elie Wiesel (vee-ZEHL') in a hotel elevator.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A British actress who earned YouTube stardom after posting monologues about her failed high society marriage was cruel to her husband and must vacate their apartment within a month, a New York judge ruled on Monday.

LONDON (Reuters) - The husband of British soul singer Amy Winehouse was ordered to serve about 4 1/2 more months in prison on Monday after he pleaded guilty to attacking a pub owner in 2006 and then trying to cover it up.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Black Panthers-turned human rights campaigner Mumia Abu-Jamal has requested a retrial on his conviction of murdering a police officer, after his death sentence was overturned in March, his lawyer said Sunday.

ALBANY, N.Y. - New York's attorney general notified Comcast Corp. on Monday that the state will take legal action if the company — the nation's second-largest Internet service provider — doesn't agree to eliminate access to child pornography.

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors argued Monday against a request by a mental hospital to allow would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley Jr. expanded visits to his family in Virginia.

SAVANNAH, Ga. - Authorities say a suspected mail bomb that forced the evacuation of a Savannah, Ga., courthouse turned out to be a harmless package.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who has pressured Internet service providers to block access to child pornography, on Monday said his office would pursue legal action against Comcast Cable Communications LLC if it did not quickly agree to reforms.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - A swimming pool company president was charged Monday with second-degree manslaughter in connection with the drowning of a 6-year-old boy whose arm was trapped by the suction of a powerful drain pump.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan, pleaded not guilty on Monday at the opening of the first trial before a special military tribunal at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials said.

MOSCOW (AFP) - A Ukrainian man wanted in the United States for money laundering and securities fraud has been arrested in Monaco, the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant reported on Monday.

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. - Federal prosecutors say they should not be forced to drop references to al-Qaida and jihad from the indictment of five men accused of plotting to attack soldiers on Fort Dix.

SCRANTON, Pa. - A man charged with killing three people with a knife and a hammer said "I had fun" and blew a kiss to reporters while being led into court after his arrest.