Facebook will try to get a New York man's claim for majority ownership of the website thrown out of court, attorneys for the social networking site said Tuesday.

A complaint by Paul Ceglia of Wellsville claims that a 7-year-old contract he signed with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for software development entitles him to 84 percent of the company.

"No one's ever said it's not his signature or it's a fake contract," Ceglia attorney Terrence Connors said during a federal court hearing in Buffalo.

Connors said the two men met when Zuckerberg, then a Harvard University freshman, responded to an ad Ceglia had posted on Craigslist looking for someone to develop software for a street-mapping database he was creating.

Zuckerberg offered to take on Ceglia's project for $1,000, Connors said, and then told Ceglia about a project of his own, a kind of online yearbook for Harvard students that he wanted to expand.

Ceglia said he gave Zuckerberg another $1,000 to continue work on Zuckerberg's "The Face Book," with the condition that Ceglia would own a 50 percent interest in the software and business if it expanded. The percentage grew to 84 percent based on a clause that added a percentage point for each day the project went past its Jan. 1, 2004, due date.

Zuckerberg's undertaking "at that time was a fledgling project," Connors said. "Who knew it would turn into what it has turned into today."

Facebook recently celebrated its 500 millionth user, Connors said.

A Phoenix man accused of fatally shooting the operator of a photo speed-enforcement van has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

Maricopa County Superior Court spokeswoman Karen Arra says 69-year-old Thomas Patrick Destories entered the plea Tuesday, stipulating 22 years in prison. Sentencing is Aug. 20.

Destories was charged with first-degree murder in the April 19, 2009, shooting of Doug Georgianni, who was operating a speed-enforcement van on a Phoenix freeway.

Destories' trial was slated to begin in January, but his attorney requested a psychiatric evaluation, saying Destories has a history of mental illness going back to 1970.

Two psychologists examined Destories and found him competent to stand trial.

Former Seton Hall basketball coach Bobby Gonzalez has pleaded not guilty to a shoplifting charge.

Gonzalez is accused of taking a satchel worth about $1,400 from the Polo Ralph Lauren store in The Mall at Short Hills last month. Police say he removed the sensor device from the satchel and walked out of the store without paying for it.

Gonzalez was arraigned in Newark on Wednesday on criminal mischief and shoplifting charges. The shoplifting charge is punishable by up to five years in jail.

Gonzalez was fired in March after Seton Hall lost in the opening round of the NIT. He has sued the school over his dismissal.

A 34-year-old Clearwater woman is accused of stealing at least $175,000 from her employer over several years and spending it on vacations, trips to the hair salon, personal bills and student loan payments.

Kerry Sue McCallister-Higgins was arrested Monday night on a felony charge of grand theft.

According to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, McCallister-Higgins had check-signing privileges as an office manager and bookkeeper at Golson Law Firm, which used to be at 601 Cleveland St. N.

Over the course of six years or longer, McCallister-Higgins wrote "multiple, unauthorized" checks to herself, an arrest report shows.

She used others to pay for credit card purchases at grocery stores, movie theaters, drugstores and various other shops. Others paid bills for hotels, hair-dos, rental cars, student loans and a cell phone, said Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda.

At the time of her arrest, Detective David Kavanagh with the Sheriff's Office economic crimes unit had identified $175,939 in missing funds. But that amount may rise as detectives continue to investigate, Barreda said.

Former Oakland Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell pleaded not guilty to a charge of illegal drug possession Tuesday in Alabama.

Russell, 24, is a former LSU star who was released by Oakland after being the No. 1 draft choice in 2007. He entered the plea in court in Mobile. He is charged with felony possession of a controlled substance, codeine syrup.

Authorities have said that he did not have a prescription for the drug and that he was arrested July 5 at his home as part of an undercover investigation.

His attorney, Donald Briskman, said in a phone interview that there were about nine or 10 people in the house and that he believes once all the evidence is known, Russell will be exonerated.

Russell, a prep star in Mobile, had no comment after his court appearance. He has been free on $2,500 bond.

Briskman said he asked for an early hearing in order for Russell to get the case behind him and renew his effort to play professional football. A hearing in his case is set for Aug. 11 to determine if there is enough evidence to send the case to a grand jury.

One of the NFL's biggest No. 1 draft busts, Russell completed just 52.1 percent of his passes in his career, with 18 touchdowns, 23 interceptions and 15 lost fumbles. He won only seven of 25 starts.

Conrad Black, the brash former newspaper magnate who lived extravagantly before his 2007 federal conviction for defrauding shareholders, may soon be released from a Florida prison after a federal appeals court granted him bail Monday.

The ruling from the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals came weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court kicked Black's fraud conviction back to a lower court.

Black, who renounced his Canadian citizenship to become a member of the British House of Lords, was convicted along with three other former executives from the media empire Hollinger International of swindling the company's shareholders out of $6.1 million. He was acquitted of nine other charges.

It was not immediately clear when Black, 65, would be released from the low-security prison in Coleman, Fla., where he has served more than two years of a 6 1/2-year sentence. The conditions of his release will be determined by U.S. District Court judge in Chicago, according to an order from the three-judge panel.

Last month, the Supreme Court weakened the "honest services" law that was central to Black's fraud conviction. The justices left it up to a lower court to decide whether the conviction should be overturned. That decision has not yet been made.