Sentencing

For more than six hours Tuesday, as a parade of witnesses testified about the severity of Aaron Hart's mental retardation and his inability to understand his legal rights, the 18-year-old defendant with an IQ of 47 sat silent and shackled in a chair, alternately fidgeting, daydreaming and making faces.

Since they were convicted last year of conspiring to kill military personnel, five immigrants have been busy -- and at times erratic. Eljvir Duka, one of three brothers convicted, wrote a letter to the judge in the case seeking to convert him to Islam. Duka and Serdar Tatar have tried to dismiss their court-appointed lawyers -- but changed their minds. While maintaining his innocence, Mohamad Shnewer has apologized for inadvertently dragging his friends into the case.

A man who was the "epicenter of the conspiracy" to kill military personnel was sentenced to life in prison and a convicted fellow plotter was sentenced to 33 years as a judge on Wednesday finished sentencing five Muslim immigrants who contemplated an attack on Ft. Dix. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler had sentenced the three others involved in the plot to at least life in prison. Under federal law, none of the four given life sentences will be eligible for parole.

A Missouri mother should serve three years in prison for her role in a MySpace hoax on a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide, federal prosecutors said in court documents filed Wednesday in Los Angeles. Assistant U.S. Atty. Mark Krause outlined the government's position while requesting the maximum sentence for Lori Drew. Probation officials have recommended that Drew receive a year of probation and a $5,000 fine.

Just before he was sentenced for dumping the body of an Orange County woman in the ocean following a night of heavy drug use, John Steven Burgess swore to the victim's family that he didn't intentionally harm the college honor student. "She overdosed," Burgess said in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Monday. "I panicked and I made a really, really regretful, stupid decision that I wish I could take back."

When federal prosecutors in Los Angeles indicted a Missouri mother last year for committing an Internet hoax that apparently led to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl, they touted the novel legal approach that allowed them to file the case halfway across the country. On Monday, a U.S. district judge indicated they may have gone too far. "Using this particular statute in this particular situation is so weird," Judge George H. Wu said, calling some of the prosecution's argument "troublesome."

An Iraqi court Tuesday convicted a Sunni architect in the 2004 kidnapping-slaying of British aid worker Margaret Hassan and sentenced him to life in prison. Hassan was married to an Iraqi and had lived in the country for 30 years. She was seized in October 2004 on her way to work in Baghdad, where she served as director of CARE International in Iraq.

A former Cedars-Sinai Medical Center employee was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty Monday to stealing patient information to defraud insurance firms of $354,000. The hospital had sent letters in December to more than 1,000 patients, warning them that their information had been found during a search of the home of James Allen Wilson, who worked in the billing department from 2003 to 2007.

Five members of the "Jena Six" pleaded no contest Friday to misdemeanor simple battery and won't serve jail time, ending a case that thrust a small Louisiana town into the national spotlight and sparked a massive civil rights demonstration. The five were sentenced to seven days of unsupervised probation and fined $500.

Peter Moskowitz's retirement was marred forever when he lost his life savings to Bernard L. Madoff -- and he doesn't want the disgraced financier's golden years to be any better. Moskowitz and other victims of Madoff's monumental Ponzi scheme will be watching closely as Madoff is sentenced today for masterminding a scheme that swindled billions of dollars from investors over two decades. Madoff's lawyer, Ira Sorkin, has asked U.S.