Sentencing

Rapper T.I. pleaded guilty in Atlanta on Thursday to federal weapons possession charges, and will receive a sentence that includes prison time after he completes a period of community service. In the year that he is awaiting sentencing, T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, must complete 1,500 hours of community service, at least 1,000 of them talking to youth groups about the pitfalls of guns, gangs and drugs. Harris, 27, whose sixth album debuted at No. 1 on the sales charts last July, pleaded guilty to possession of unregistered machine guns and silencers, unlawful possession of machine guns and possession of firearms by a convicted felon.

The leader of the Narragansett tribe, Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas, was ordered to perform 150 hours of community service for brawling with state troopers during a police raid on a tribal smoke shop in Charleston. The sentencing ends a case that began five years ago after tribal members fought with state police who were shutting down a shop on tribal land that was selling cigarettes without collecting state taxes.

A federal judge in Chicago delayed sentencing for convicted fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko as one of his lawyers said he was working with prosecutors in hopes of getting a reduced prison term. Sentencing is now set for Dec. 16. "We are trying to work toward an agreement that would affect sentencing," attorney Bill Ziegelmueller said after the hearing. Rezko was a major political fundraiser who bankrolled campaigns of Sen. Barack Obama and Democratic Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich. He did not supply any money to Obama's current campaign, and the Democratic presidential nominee has not been accused of wrongdoing.

A Federal Bureau of Prisons policy excluding murderers, rapists and others with violent crimes on their record from an early-release program is invalid because authorities have failed to explain why those inmates are ineligible, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the prison administration to reconsider the application for sentence reduction from Jerry Crickon, a federal prisoner in a Long Beach halfway house due for release in six months.

After barely a day of deliberation, a Riverside County jury on Wednesday returned a verdict of death for Raymond Lee Oyler for starting the 2006 Esperanza fire in the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains that killed five firefighters, destroyed 34 homes and charred more than 41,000 acres. Firefighters and the families of the victims hailed the decision and said it offered a measure of justice for a crime they said had torn a hole in the fabric of their lives.

The Obama administration, signaling a sharp departure from more than 20 years of federal policy, urged Congress on Wednesday to close the gap in prison sentences given to those convicted of dealing crack versus powdered cocaine. Assistant Atty. Gen. Lanny Breuer said the mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines are so inherently unfair that they have undermined trust in the country's judicial institutions, particularly among minorities who bear the brunt of the law.

With Bernard L. Madoff sentenced Monday to 150 years in prison, his massive Ponzi scheme is likely to be felt for years as victims struggle to recoup their money, investors treat Wall Street with new suspicion and regulators scramble to crack down on all manner of financial wrongdoing. Closing a chapter in the Madoff melodrama, a federal judge unexpectedly imposed the maximum possible sentence, jolting the legal community and electrifying many of those who had entrusted Madoff with their money.

Two women who brutally abused a 5-year-old boy will go to prison to serve lengthy sentences under a plea deal reached Friday. Starkeisha Brown, 26, the child's mother, and 22-year-old Krystal Denise Matthews, Brown's live-in girlfriend, pleaded no contest to corporal injury, dissuading a witness and great bodily injury to a child under 5. Prosecutors dropped other charges of child abuse, conspiracy, conspiracy to dissuade a witness and...

Roman Polanski rushed up to the British Airways counter at LAX in late January 1978 with an American Express card and an urgent desire to get out of town. He bought the last seat on an overnight flight to London and 15 minutes later, he wrote in his autobiography, watched Los Angeles gradually disappear out a jet window. The criminal case that Polanski was fleeing never went away, as his recent arrest in Zurich attests. But how a Los Angeles court would restart the case if Switzerland extradites the film director, 76, is a question complicated by the passage of decades and recent allegations of judicial misconduct.

A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investment banking associate who helped mastermind a $6.7-million insider trading ring was sentenced Thursday to almost five years in prison for misusing information from an analyst, a juror and a magazine. Eugene Plotkin, who worked in the fixed-income research division of Goldman, the largest U.S. securities firm by market value, is one of two men who orchestrated a scheme to trade on secret tips from a Merrill Lynch & Co.