Indictments

Rep. Rick Renzi, a three-term Republican from Arizona, was charged in a federal indictment unsealed Friday with multiple counts of wrongdoing, including using his official position to promote a land deal that secretly brought millions to him and a business partner. The indictment, handed up by a federal grand jury in Tucson late Thursday and revealed by Justice Department officials at a news conference Friday, charges Renzi with 35 counts, including extortion, money laundering and fraud.

A former Argentine president was charged with bribery as part of an investigation into whether his government paid legislators to push through a law in 2000, court officials said. A federal court charged Fernando de la Rua and ordered about $157,500 of his assets frozen. He could face up to six years in prison if convicted, but his defense lawyer told local radio he will not be jailed pending trial. The bribery scandal was a major blow to De la Rua, who ultimately had to flee the presidential palace in December 2001 amid protests and a deepening economic crisis.

A man and a woman from California's Central Valley face charges that they drugged young girls with Oreo cookies laced with antidepressants, then videotaped the girls as the man allegedly molested them. Steven Patrick Arthur, 31, and girlfriend Jennifer Lynn Thurman, 32, are in Tulare County Jail on state and federal charges of molestation and pornography. The pair have pleaded not guilty to the state charges. The couple were living in Arthur's home in Porterville, a small town between Fresno and Bakersfield, when the crimes allegedly occurred in September.

Two self-proclaimed stock-trading experts who used infomercials and hotel seminars to sell an investment system have been indicted on federal fraud charges. Linda Woolf, 48, of Sandy, Utah, and David Gengler, 34, of Draper, Utah, portrayed themselves as successful investors and persuaded consumers to pay $3,000 to $40,000 each to learn the Teach Me to Trade system, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Alexandria, Va. In fact, the government said, Woolf and Gengler reported little or no profit on their federal tax returns.

Attorneys for former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona implored a federal judge Friday to dismiss most of the charges he is facing, contending that prosecutors from the U.S. attorney's office overstepped their authority in targeting him. Carona attorney John D. Cline said the federal government is obligated to allow states to set and enforce their own political corruption laws.

The civic soap opera engulfing Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick took a new plot twist Monday when a county prosecutor charged the onetime rising political star with obstruction of justice, perjury and misconduct in office, all related to a romantic relationship with his former chief of staff. Facing political catastrophe and a long prison term, Kilpatrick defiantly vowed to fight the civil felony charges, which grew out of an $8.

Federal prosecutors Wednesday announced two grand jury indictments against 13 members of the Grape Street Crips, a street gang suspected of manufacturing and distributing large quantities of the drug PCP throughout Southern California.

The Pentagon charged a Guantanamo detainee with capital murder and terrorism Monday for his alleged role in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania and his suspected ties to Al Qaeda. The Defense Department's chief military commissions prosecutor filed nine charges against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, and is seeking the death penalty if the Tanzanian is convicted of playing a central role in planning and preparing the truck bombing that killed 11 people and injured dozens.

A Santa Barbara County grand jury has indicted a former school district official in Santa Maria and three former executives of a defunct Temecula company for allegedly siphoning off $3.6 million in state funds intended for school construction.