A former JetBlue flight attendant accused of cursing out an airplane passenger and then sliding down an emergency exit chute is due in a New York City courtroom.

Steven Slater is scheduled to appear today for a routine hearing on criminal-mischief charges.

Share Slater also was charged with reckless endangerment and trespassing after last month's meltdown aboard a JetBlue Airways Corp. flight from Pittsburgh that had just landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport. His lawyer has said the passenger's "lack of civility" prompted his behavior.

Defense attorney Daniel J. Horwitz says Slater is looking forward to his day in court.  Slater became water cooler talk for days after his Aug. 9 meltdown. Online groups canonized him as a hero or vilified him as a cranky brat.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

Lonnie Franklin Jr., the suspect in the "Grim Sleeper" serial killings, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday morning in a Los Angeles, California, courtroom on 10 counts of murder.

Franklin is accused of killing 10 women in the south Los Angeles area between 1985 and 2007.

Nicknamed for taking long breaks between attacks, the "Grim Sleeper" is believed responsible for at least 10 deaths between 1985 and 2007 in south Los Angeles. The killer targeted black women, some working as prostitutes, using the same small caliber weapon.

Los Angeles police arrested Franklin on July 8 by comparing DNA found at some of the crime scenes with the DNA of the suspect's son, who was in a California lockup.

Five days after his arrest, Franklin was attacked in jail. Inmate Antonio Rodriguez and Franklin were in an attorney waiting room when the assault happened, said Steve Whitmore, a sheriff's department spokesman.

Rodriguez was not in handcuffs at the time and apparently recognized Franklin. Without being provoked, Rodriguez hit Franklin in the head twice, and he suffered minor injuries, Whitmore said.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

A lawyer for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says the Justice Department has ended a probe of the Texas Republican and will not file any criminal charges.

The six-year criminal investigation focused on DeLay's ties to disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was released from a minimum-security prison camp in June.

One of DeLay's lawyers, Richard Cullen, said Monday the Justice Department's Office of Public Integrity informed DeLay's legal team early last week that it was ending the investigation.

Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to comment, which is normally the case when the department ends a criminal probe without filing charges.

Abramoff served about 3 1/2 years in prison for fraud, corruption and conspiracy. He spent three days in a halfway house in Baltimore before he was placed in home confinement. Abramoff currently is working in a kosher pizzeria in northwest Baltimore.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

A former money manager convicted of trying to fake his own death in a Florida plane crash has agreed to plead guilty to securities fraud charges in Indiana.

Marcus Schrenker could face 10 years in prison in exchange for pleading guilty to five of 11 counts under a proposed plea agreement with Hamilton County prosecutors.

He could also be required to pay more than $600,000 in restitution. Schrenker is accused of bilking friends, family members and other investors of more than $1 million.

A hearing on the deal is set for Sept. 15 in Hamilton Superior Court in the Indianapolis suburb of Noblesville. A judge still has to accept Schrenker's plea before the agreement can take effect.

The only remaining dispute is whether Schrenker should serve his Indiana sentence at the same time as a four-year federal sentence out of Florida, Jeff Wehmueller, administrative chief deputy prosecutor in Hamilton County, said Thursday.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

A man suspected in a three-state stabbing spree is due in court in Atlanta for an extradition hearing after he was arrested at the airport before flying out of the country.

Thirty-three-year-old Elias Abuelazam (eh-lee-AHS' ah-boo-ehl-ah-ZAHM') was scheduled to appear in a Fulton County court on Friday. He was arrested Wednesday before boarding a flight to his native Israel and charged with attempted murder in a July 27 knife strike in Flint, Mich., where all but four of the 18 attacks occurred.

Other attacks were in Leesburg, Va., and Toledo, Ohio.

Fulton County Superior Court spokesman Don Plummer said it would an extradition hearing. Abuelazam, an Israeli citizen who is in the U.S. with a green card, was living in Flint.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

A federal crackdown on illegal online sports bookmaking has netted another guilty plea in a Kansas City operation involving more than $3.5 million in bets.

The U.S. Attorney's office says 57-year-old Michael Lombardo pleaded guilty Wednesday to conducting an illegal gambling business.

Prosecutors said Lombardo admitted conducting the operation from March 2006 to March 2009. The Kansas City-based business relied on a website with a computer server located in Costa Rica.

Lombardo was responsible for bettors who wagered nearly $491,000 altogether.

Two co-defendants pleaded guilty earlier. The case against a fourth man is still pending.

Sentencing for Lombardo will be set later. Under his plea agreement, Lombardo agreed to forfeit $4,000, which prosecutors said was his share of the operation's proceeds.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

A mother who drunkenly drove a station wagon full of children into a New York City highway wreck that killed one of them has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a case that spurred a state law.

Carmen Huertas wiped her eyes as she entered her guilty plea Tuesday in a Manhattan courtroom packed with her relatives and victims' families.

The October crash occurred as Huertas drove to a slumber party. It killed 11-year-old Leandra Rosado and injured the other six children, including Huertas' daughter. It prompted Leandra's Law, which makes drunken driving a felony if a child is in the vehicle.

Huertas' sentencing is set for Oct. 1. A judge has promised her more than the minimum range of one to three years in prison but less than the maximum range of five to 15 years.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

A mother who drunkenly drove a station wagon full of children into a New York City highway wreck that killed one of them has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a case that spurred a state law.

Carmen Huertas wiped her eyes as she entered her guilty plea Tuesday in a Manhattan courtroom packed with her relatives and victims' families.

The October crash occurred as Huertas drove to a slumber party. It killed 11-year-old Leandra Rosado and injured the other six children, including Huertas' daughter. It prompted Leandra's Law, which makes drunken driving a felony if a child is in the vehicle.

Huertas' sentencing is set for Oct. 1. A judge has promised her more than the minimum range of one to three years in prison but less than the maximum range of five to 15 years.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

A Bolivian man charged with killing a nun in a car crash in Virginia had at least two previous drunken driving convictions and had been released twice by immigration officers who took him into custody because he was in the United States illegally.

Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, 23, was charged in Sunday's accident in Virginia's Prince William County. Sister Denise Mosier, a nun with the Benedictine Sisters of Virginia, died in the crash, and two others, Sisters Charlotte Lange and Connie Ruth Lupton, were injured. They remained in critical condition on Wednesday, a spokeswoman, Sister Glenna Smith, wrote in an e-mail.

A wake for Mosier was planned for Thursday evening and a funeral Mass and burial for Friday, both at the nuns' Bristow, Va., monastery, according to its website.

The accident occurred as the nation has become divided over how much authority police should have to check the immigration status of people they stop. Some in Virginia would like to expand that authority, similar to a tough law Arizona recently passed. That law is under review in federal court.

In a statement on their website, the nuns said they're upset that the tragedy is being politicized and "become an apparent forum for the illegal immigration agenda."

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

A 76-year-old Connecticut man has been arrested after authorities discovered he was released from a mental hospital in 1992 after being found incompetent to stand trial for a 1991 murder.

Prosecutors say they should have been notified 18 years ago when Pedro Custodio was released from a state hospital in Newtown. Authorities had expected Custodio to be committed to the hospital for much longer.

A judge had asked about the status of the case this month because it had been open for almost two decades. Custodio was arrested Monday and ordered held on $200,000 bail during a court appearance Tuesday.

Custodio's sister tells the Republican-American newspaper that the state approved his release from the hospital. She says his arrest this week amounts to a death sentence.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.