The arms of the justice system reached out and touched Bernard J. Ebbers this week, but it was a cold and crushing embrace. The folksy former WorldCom chief executive, one of the telecommunication bubble’s enduring icons, was found guilty for his role in an $11 billion accounting fraud, which could put him away for as […]

Last March, a federal prosecutor in Utah overseeing a racketeering case against a dozen members of the Soldiers of Aryan Culture received a chilling threat. “You stupid bitch!” the letter to the assistant United States attorney, who is an African-American woman, began. “It is because of you that my brothers are in jail.” The letter

Michael Jackson’s lawyers will be allowed to question witnesses about an alleged incident in which the boy now accusing the singer of molestation claimed that comedian George Lopez took $300 from his wallet. Defense attorneys have tried to raise the matter during cross-examination of the boy and other witnesses but have been blocked by objections

High-profile attorney Charles E. Polk Jr. evaded paying more than $470,000 in income taxes and bilked large sums from a public agency and his own law clients, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. Polk, who has been at the center of several controversies in recent years, was charged late Wednesday in U.S. District Court

An attempt by computer hackers to steal £220m in one of the world’s biggest bank robberies has been foiled by British detectives. A high-technology crime gang planned to transfer millions of pounds from the London offices of the Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui into 10 bank accounts around the world. But before they could download any

MOSCOW – A jailed lawyer for the embattled Yukos oil company has come off a hunger strike after suffering health problems, her lawyer said Tuesday. Svetlana Bakhmina, who is charged in connection with a 6-year-old case involving alleged asset-stripping at a Yukos subsidiary, began a hunger strike March 3 to protest after investigators refused to

As the number of Vioxx-related cases mounts, Merck (MRK:NYSE – commentary – research) is discovering that some of its insurers don’t want to pay for the company’s defense against the lawsuits. Merck says it will fight the insurers’ efforts to reduce or eliminate coverage. Merck disclosed the insurance battle Friday after markets had closed. It

The Bush White House loves to accuse critics of its tax-cut policies of engaging in “class warfare.” However, it’s hard to imagine a more egregious example of class warfare than the Bush-pushed “bankruptcy reform” bill that just cleared the U.S. Senate. This measure, S256, long sought by credit-card companies and retailers, will fall heaviest on

Prosecutors want to review Michael Jackson ‘s financial records, saying they believe serious money troubles drove the entertainer to force his accuser’s family to help him rebut a damaging television documentary. Assistant District Attorney Gordon Auchincloss requested copies of the documents Friday at a hearing that included several rulings in the singer’s child molestation case,

There is no dispute that there was fraud. There is no dispute that the accounting was questionable. There is no dispute that shareholders lost billions or that the company went bankrupt. But convicting any top executive, like Bernard J. Ebbers, the former WorldCom chief executive, is difficult. The arcana of accounting, compounded by the difficulty