Conspiracy

A jury has found six Muslim men guilty of being members of a terrorist group that allegedly plotted to launch an attack in Australia. Four other men were found innocent on charges of being members of a terrorist group, and the jury was still deliberating today on the same charge for two other suspects. The men are involved in Australia's largest trial on terrorism charges.

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a jury verdict against two former police detectives who were convicted of moonlighting as gangsters and carrying out a series of hits for the mob. The court said Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa can be sentenced on racketeering conspiracy convictions.

A 43-year-old man pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy charges linked to the bombing of the federal San Diego courthouse May 4. Eric Reginald Robinson faces a minimum of 30 years in prison when sentenced Jan. 9, officials said. Robinson admitted buying bomb materials and driving an alleged co-conspirator to the courthouse. Three pipe bombs broke several windows at the front of the courthouse, but there were no injuries in the late-night incident. Two other defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Afghanistan's intelligence service said Saturday that it had broken up a Taliban plot to attack the country's most notorious prison with a wave of suicide bombers, while the government named a new interior minister to lead the country's fledgling police. The militants planned to attack the Policharki prison on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, to free Taliban and criminal prisoners, the Afghan intelligence service said.

President Hugo Chavez threatened to imprison the popular governor of Venezuela's western Zulia state for allegedly plotting to kill him. Chavez leveled the accusation against Manuel Rosales -- one of Venezuela's four opposition governors -- just weeks before Nov. 23 gubernatorial and municipal elections. Rosales, the two-time governor of Zulia, is running for mayor of Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city. He ran against Chavez for the presidency in 2006, but Chavez handily defeated him.

Authorities arrested five juveniles Wednesday night after receiving reports that they planned to bring guns to school and randomly shoot students, staff and teachers. "They were overheard talking by some other students who told teachers who then notified us," said Tiffany Swantek, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department's Big Bear station. "We take those sorts of reports very seriously." On Wednesday night 35 deputies launched five simultaneous searches of the suspects' homes, turning up drug paraphernalia, cash, a fake Mexican identification card and gang graffiti.

A former Atlanta police officer pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges for his role in a botched drug raid that ended in the shooting death of a 92-year-old woman. Arthur Tesler, who shot no one, faces more than 10 years in prison on a charge of conspiracy to violate civil rights resulting in death. He is to be sentenced in February. Police originally said they had gone to Kathryn Johnston's home in 2006 after an informant bought drugs there. But after finding none, officers tried to cover up the mistake by planting bags of marijuana, prosecutors said.

A federal magistrate in Memphis says two white supremacists accused of plotting to kill Barack Obama and dozens of other black people must remain in jail. The magistrate granted a defense request to delay a hearing for Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesselman, 18. Their lawyers want more time to prepare for a hearing on whether the case will be sent to a grand jury. The two are charged with possessing an illegal firearm, planning to steal weapons and threatening a presidential candidate.

Six men plotted to kill subway and bus passengers with bombs made from hydrogen peroxide and flour, two weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 commuters here, a British prosecutor told a jury Monday. No one was killed in the attempted bombings of three subway trains and a bus on July 21, 2005, because the devices failed to explode. "We say that the failure of these bombs to explode owed nothing to the intentions of the defendants.

Former Cendant Corp. Chairman Walter Forbes was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years and seven months in prison and ordered to pay $3.275 billion in restitution for leading the largest accounting fraud of the 1990s. In October, a jury found Forbes guilty of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and two counts of making false statements in a massive fraud scheme that cost the travel and real estate company and its investors more than $3 billion.