A former vice president of an Iowa kosher slaughterhouse will be sentenced to 27 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $27 million restitution for his conviction on financial fraud charges, a federal judge said Monday.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge Linda R. Reade released the memorandum outlining the sentence she will hand down for Sholom Rubashkin during the former Agriprocessor's Inc. manager on Tuesday in federal court in Cedar Rapids.

A jury found Rubashkin guilty last fall on 86 federal financial fraud charges. Prosecutors had sought a 25-year sentence. Rubashkin's attorney, Guy Cook, said the sentence is longer than necessary and plans to appeal.

"It's unfair and excessive and is essentially a life sentence for a 51-year-old man," Cook said.

Cook said he spoke to Rubashkin Monday and he described Rubashkin as calm and focused.

Rubashkin oversaw the plant in Postville, Iowa, that gained attention in 2008 after a large-scale immigration raid in which authorities detained 389 illegal immigrants. The plant filed for bankruptcy months after the raid and was later sold. Prosecutors claim evidence of the massive fraud scheme was uncovered during an investigation by a court-appointed trustee.

Prosecutors later alleged that Rubashkin intentionally deceived the company's lender and that he directed employees to create fake invoices in order to show St. Louis-based First Bank that the plant had more money flowing in that it really did. But Cook tried to portray Rubashkin as a bumbling businessman who was in over his head, and who never read the loan agreement with First Bank.

The Supreme Court on Monday:

_Upheld a federal law that bars "material support" to foreign terrorist organizations, rejecting a free speech challenge from humanitarian aid groups. The court ruled 6-3 that the government may prohibit all forms of aid to designated terrorist groups, even if the support consists of training and advice about entirely peaceful and legal activities.

_Decided to allow a new trial for a woman who got breast cancer after taking hormone replacement therapy and is seeking punitive damages against Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. The justices rejected Wyeth's attempt to block the trial because it is to be limited to punitive damages. Wyeth is a subsidiary of Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug company.

_Ruled that a federal judge went too far when he banned the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa seeds after claims that the plants might harm the environment. The court, on a 7-1 vote, reversed a federal appeals court ruling that had prohibited Monsanto Co. from selling alfalfa seeds because they are resistant to the popular weed killer Roundup.

_Made it harder for people to challenge arbitration agreements in court. The court, in a 5-4 vote, decided that arbitrators are the only ones who can decide if an arbitration agreement as a whole is "unconscionable" if the contract explicitly delegates that issue to the arbitrator and a person fails to challenge that specific clause.

_Announced that it will decide whether Virginia's advocate for the mentally ill can force state

The Supreme Court says it will decide whether Virginia's advocate for the mentally ill can force state officials to provide records relating to deaths and injuries at state mental health facilities.

The justices agreed Monday to review a federal appeals court ruling dismissing the state advocate's lawsuit against Virginia's mental health commissioner and two other officials.

Backing the appeal, the Obama administration said the ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond "threatens to undermine the enforcement of federal laws that Congress designed to protect especially vulnerable individuals from the abusive and neglectful practices that can result in injury and death."

The Virginia advocate's office, like those in the other 49 states, was created under two federal laws that give states federal money for monitoring the treatment of the mentally ill in state facilities. The first law grew out of public reports in the 1970s of crowded, filthy conditions and abusive treatment of mentally retarded children at the Willowbrook State School in New York.

The issue for the court is whether the Eleventh Amendment prohibits a state agency from going to federal court to sue officials of the same state. The state itself could not be sued in the same circumstances.

The Supreme Court has upheld a federal law that bars "material support" to foreign terrorist organizations, rejecting a free speech challenge from humanitarian aid groups.

The court ruled 6-3 Monday that the government may prohibit all forms of aid to designated terrorist groups, even if the support consists of training and advice about entirely peaceful and legal activities.

Material support intended even for benign purposes can help a terrorist group in other ways, Chief Justice John Roberts said in his majority opinion.

"Such support frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends," Roberts said.

Justice Stephen Breyer took the unusual step of reading his dissent aloud in the courtroom. Breyer said he rejects the majority's conclusion "that the Constitution permits the government to prosecute the plaintiffs criminally" for providing instruction and advice about the terror groups' lawful political objectives. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent.

The law allows medicine and religious materials to go to groups on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

Hyland Levin, a law firm that was created by breaking off from Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll’s Voorhees, N.J., office, is scheduled to move at the end of August into its new offices at 6000 Sagemore Drive in Marlton, N.J. The firm signed a 10-year deal on 16,440 square feet on the third floor of the building, giving it fresh space for the relatively new firm. Hyland Levin has been working from 12,000 square feet of former Ballard Spahr space at 1000 Main St. in Voorhees. The lease on that space is scheduled to expire in August.

Mark Shapiro, an attorney at Hyland Levin, took a circuitous route to Sagemore Drive. While at Ballard, he was put in charge of looking for space for the law firm since the lease was scheduled to come due this summer. For roughly 18 months before leaving Ballard last June and helping to form the new firm, Shapiro toured several sites throughout South Jersey to look for something that would be a good fit.

“We looked at a lot of space,” he said.

Marlton and Mount Laurel were considered along the Route 38 and Route 73 corridors as well as a couple of sites in Voorhees. During the search and in the throes of the recession, Hyland Levin was established and it was no longer a Ballard deal. While Shapiro really liked Liberty Property Trust’s Four Greentree Centre, Hyland Levin partners preferred Sagemore and settled on 6000 Sagemore. Jason Wolf at Colliers International was involved with the transaction.

The Supreme Court lifted Monday a four-year ban on the sale in the United States of genetically modified alfalfa, which farmers fear contaminates others crops.

A district court judge in California in May 2007 blocked the US biotech giant Monsanto from selling alfalfa seeds that it had genetically modified to resist its Roundup weed killer.

The ruling was upheld on appeal in 2009, but Monsanto went to the Supreme Court arguing that any decision should have awaited the findings of a study by the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.