Two Iowa women pleaded guilty Thursday to federal felony charges that they embezzled nearly $6 million from West Des Moines insurer Aviva USA.

The charges come nearly a year after Phyllis Stevens, 59, was arrested at a Las Vegas hotel. An Aviva employee discovered more than $5.9 million in company funds had been funneled into an Indianapolis bank account held by the couple.

Federal prosecutors in Iowa said both Phyllis Stevens and Marla Stevens, 58, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to file false income tax returns. Phyllis Stevens also pleaded guilty to counts of wire fraud, computer fraud and filing a false income tax return.

Phyllis Stevens admitted stealing the money by making fraudulent entries into the computer system at Aviva. She also admitted to buying real estate and paying large credit card bills with the money, prosecutors said. Marla Stevens admitted she knew about and participated in the scheme.

A Philippine court has sentenced a father to 14,400 years in prison after he was convicted of the near-daily rape of his teenage daughter over the course of a year.

A trial court originally condemned the man, a motorcycle taxi driver, to die in March 2006 after he was convicted of 360 counts of rape allegedly carried out during the year his wife worked in Hong Kong.

The Philippines repealed the death penalty in June 2006 and the Court of Appeals in Manila affirmed the conviction on Sept. 8 but lowered the sentence to 40 years' imprisonment — the maximum now allowed by law — for each count of rape, according to a copy of the decision obtained Friday.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said the U.S. economy remains in recession, disputing this week's assessment by a leading arbiter of economic activity that the downturn ended more than a year ago.

"We're still in a recession," Buffett told CNBC television in an interview broadcast on Thursday. "We're not gonna be out of it for a while, but we will get out."

On Monday, the National Bureau of Economic Research said the world's largest economy ended an 18-month recession in June 2009, but cautioned that its assessment did not mean normal activity had resumed.

Buffett said he defines a recession differently from the NBER, saying it ends when real per capita gross domestic product returns to its pre-downturn level.

President Barack Obama said on Monday that economic weakness is "still very real" for the millions of Americans who are out of work, have seen the value of their homes fall, or are mired in debt.

Five of the 11 defendants in an alleged $20.5 million mortgage fraud scheme purportedly involving former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Eugene Lockhart have pleaded guilty.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Dallas said Wednesday that four of the defendants have entered guilty pleas or are scheduled to do so this month. A fifth defendant pleaded guilty in February.

Lockhart and the remaining five defendants opted for a trial. An Oct. 18 trial date was postponed and hasn't been reset.

Lockhart and the others are accused of making 54 fraudulent loan closings for single-family homes in the Dallas area totaling about $20.5 million.

The 49-year-old Lockhart, who lives in suburban Carrollton, is on supervised released.

A York County IT consultant and a Maryland executive have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and criminal forfeiture, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Donald J. Cochran Jr., 44, of New Park and David B. Bossi, 43, of Phoenix, Md., conspired to defraud Adecco S.A. out of nearly $1.5 million, a news release stated.

Adecco S.A. is a Global Fortune 500 company with a domestic headquarters in Mellville, N.Y.

Between 2003 and 2006, Bossi worked as vice president for Ajilon Consulting, an Adecco subsidiary, police said. In 2006, he was responsible for the reviewing and approving of all Data Center Consolidation Project invoices, which entailed a relocation to North Carolina.

Cochran was the owner of Information Technology consulting firms -- Technology Products and Services and Information Technology Management Systems -- headquartered in York County.

Cochran submitted about 64 false invoices between August 2007 and August 2008 for equipment and services that were never provided to Adecco on the DCC Project, police said.

A man convicted of murder after three bloodhounds allegedly matched his scent to the victim should be set free because the evidence against him was not legally sufficient, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Wednesday.

The court acquitted Richard Winfrey Sr., reversing his 2007 conviction in the murder of high school janitor Murray Burr in the small town of Coldspring, about 60 miles north of Houston.

Under the ruling, prosecutors will not be allowed to retry the case.

Winfrey remained in state prison Wednesday. His attorney, Shirley Baccus-Lobel, said she planned to immediately file a motion for his release with the state appeals court. It is possible he could be freed by Friday, his 57th birthday.

"We thank God first and then Shirley second," said Vicky Winfrey-Daffern, the defendant's sister. "We are so overjoyed. Everybody's turning flips."

The main evidence against Winfrey in the 2004 murder was a positive scent identification from three bloodhounds named Quincy, James Bond and Clue. The dogs belong to former Fort Bend Sheriff's Deputy Keith Pikett, who retired earlier this year after being targeted by the Innocence Project of Texas, a group that claims the ex-lawman passes off junk science as legitimate investigative techniques.

Pikett is a defendant in at least three lawsuits from men saying they were wrongly jailed after his dogs linked them to crimes they did not commit. He did not return a message left by The Associated Press.