Conspiracy

Four police officers from a Connecticut suburb have been accused of abusing their legal authority to harass, intimidate and deprive Latinos of their rights, the latest in a series of charges brought by the federal government against local police departments. The charges against four East Haven police officers follow a Justice Department report last month that found a pattern of discrimination against Latinos and their supporters. "We know and understand how difficult police officers' jobs are and how important they are to a free society," U.S. Atty.

A former official of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles and two of his brothers have been charged with engaging in an elaborate scheme to enrich themselves by steering contracts for construction projects at the city's housing projects. Federal prosecutors allege that Victor Taracena, who supervised construction projects at the housing authority from 2003 to 2007, arranged for numerous contracts to be awarded to companies controlled by his brothers, Bennett A. Taracena and Diego L. Taracena.

Reporting from Los Angeles and Vancouver, Canada -- Once Dorothee Burkhart had squeezed through a window and escaped, only two things mattered: Finding Harry and getting out of Germany. It was September 2007 in Frankfurt. Four months earlier, police had arrested Burkhart in a string of thefts and sent her to a woman's prison to await trial. Separated from Harry, her 19-year-old son who suffered from a slew of mental disabilities, she had grown increasingly anxious. Without her, Harry was alone and unprotected in a city that she believed was filled with people set on hurting them.

Reporting from San Diego -- Former drug kingpin Benjamin Arellano Felix pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal racketeering and money-laundering conspiracy charges, marking the end of a decade-old case that targeted what once was Mexico's most powerful organized crime group. Arellano Felix, 58, the former leader of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, transformed Tijuana into a major trafficking corridor into the U.S. during a 16-year reign that ended with his arrest in Mexico in 2002. The organization, also known as the Tijuana cartel, poured tons of drugs into California and generated profits that fueled a criminal empire that terrorized rivals, partnered with corrupt Mexican law enforcement officials and funded flashy lifestyles that became the template for Hollywood depictions of Mexican organized crime.

A co-founder of Absolute Poker, one of three major Internet card-playing sites targeted by the federal government in an illegal gambling sweep this year, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy charges. Brent Beckley, a U.S. citizen who lives in Costa Rica, was charged with violating Internet gambling laws and conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. Prosecutors accused Absolute Poker, as well as gambling sites Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, of persuading financial institutions to process online gambling transactions from players' credit cards by disguising them as payments for items such as jewelry and golf balls.

Fatat Malouk said she has no doubt: The burned, mutilated and seemingly unrecognizable body parts that she viewed in a Syrian military hospital in September were the remains of her child - the victim, she said, of government thugs who snatched the teenager off the street. "My heart tells me this was my daughter," Malouk said. Her daughter, Zaynab Hosni, 18, was posthumously immortalized as "the flower of Syria," and her gruesome fate, captured on amateur video, became a graphic rallying cry for the Syrian opposition.

There will be plenty of time to comment on sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain — a third emerged Tuesday — when all the facts are known. Meanwhile, we're disappointed that the businessman-turned-presidential candidate is playing the race card. It's an unexpected tack for a man who said just last month: "I don't believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way. " Apparently Cain does think his race is a factor in the revelations about the sexual harassment complaints.

As word spread of the greenish, glowing, fast-moving fireball streaking across the southwestern U.S. sky, speculation raged among conspiracy theorists and armchair astronomers. Many took to social media Wednesday night with the theory that it was a spacecraft that suffered a SkyLab-style reentry. Some said it was a piece of low-orbiting space junk. Others went to a far darker place: It was the opening volley of an alien invasion. But experts say none of those scenarios is the most likely explanation.

With the clock ticking on a deadline to file for judicial elections in 2008, Deputy Dist. Atty. Serena Murillo got a phone call with an unexpected offer. Murillo was registered to run for seat No. 69 on the Los Angeles County Superior Court bench. The caller told her that her opponent, Court Commissioner Harvey Silberman, would pay her $1,787 filing fee if she dropped out of his race and agreed to run in another. If Murillo accepted, Silberman would have an uncontested shot at the coveted seat on the bench.

Barry Minkow is headed back to prison to serve a five-year sentence for securities fraud, but the ex-con who reinvented himself as a San Diego minister and crime fighter was looking on the bright side of his situation. In his plea bargain to a single count of conspiracy, Minkow admitted that his falsehood-filled attacks on Lennar Corp. had caused the home builder to lose $583 million in stock market value. Because that amount was so huge, he might have been sentenced to 30 years or more had he gone to trial and been convicted instead of pleading guilty.