Plea Bargaining

Federal prosecutors have offered plea bargains to almost all of the 62 reputed Gambino crime family members and associates arrested three weeks ago. Letters containing the plea offers, which legal sources said proposed prison terms of four months to nearly 20 years, were given to defense attorneys Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court in a pretrial conference. The U.S.

An attorney who oversaw Broadcom Corp. billionaire Henry T. Nicholas III's private dealings for more than five years pleaded guilty Friday to two misdemeanors and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors who have charged Nicholas with fraud and drug violations. Craig Gunther became chief operating officer of Nicholas' family office in 2001, when Nicholas, co-founder of the Irvine technology firm, allegedly was manipulating stock options to improperly reward employees.

Prosecutors have offered a plea deal to an 8-year-old boy charged with murder in the shooting deaths of his father and another man, court records show. Complete details of the offer weren't spelled out in a court filing posted Saturday on the Apache County Superior Court's website. But Apache County Atty.

The offer by state prosecutors to drop felony charges against those implicated in the corporate spying scandal at Hewlett Packard Co. could be a sign that the case against them may be weak. Or, it could indicate that federal authorities are prepared to mount their own case against former HP Chairwoman Patricia C. Dunn and three others. One investigator hired by HP has already pleaded guilty to federal felony counts of conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.

Two documents used by George Jaramillo to defend himself from corruption charges appear to be forgeries, said prosecutors, who say they used them as leverage to get the former Orange County assistant sheriff to agree to spend a year in jail as part of a plea bargain.

The daughter of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was sentenced to 18 months of court supervision in Wheaton after pleading guilty to drunken driving. Ann S. Banaszewski, 45, accepted a plea agreement under which prosecutors dropped four other charges including endangering the life of a child and failure to secure a child younger than 8 in a child-restraint system. She was arrested Feb. 12 while driving away from a fast-food restaurant with three of her children in the car.

A federal judge Thursday took the unusual step of rejecting a plea deal for an attorney who admitted leaking the grand jury testimony of elite athletes to two newspaper reporters, saying the recommended sentence was not stiff enough.

Two reputed associates of the Nazi Low Riders prison gang have agreed to plead guilty in a federal racketeering trial. After eight weeks of trial, a judge accepted their plea agreement Tuesday but barred public release of the details. Joseph Hayes and Jeffrey Langenhorst were the last of a dozen people charged in a 17-count indictment in 2002. All pleaded guilty, including an alleged senior member who in 2003 was sentenced to nearly 23 years in federal prison.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has approved dismissals and four-year jail terms for 54 young officers implicated in a failed 2003 power grab. The officers made a plea bargain agreement in a court-martial in April, resulting in a reduction of their jail term from seven to four years, military spokesman Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said. They have been in custody since the uprising and the detention will count as time served.

Tony Yayo, a rapper with hip-hop group G-Unit, rejected an offer Tuesday of nine months in jail in exchange for pleading guilty to slapping and punching a 14-year-old boy. Yayo, 29, whose real name is Marvin Bernard, was charged in March with assault, harassment and endangering the welfare of a child for allegedly hitting the boy, James Rosemond. The alleged victim is the son of Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond, recording executive and manager of the Game.