A La Fox woman has been convicted of stealing $137,237 from the St. Charles law firm of Day and Tietz in 2004, it was announced Tuesday.

Ann M. Day, 52, of the 1N600 block of Harley Road, was convicted Friday by Kane County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Sheldon. Testimony was heard in May. Sheldon issued his verdict in writing.

Day was found guilty of 12 counts of theft (four of them a Class 1 felony and eight a Class 2 felony) and 16 counts of forgery (a Class 3 felony), according to the Kane County State's Attorney's Office.

Day was arrested in late February of 2005 by St. Charles police after a four-month investigation. Her law partner, Karen Tietz, called police when irregularities in the firm's accounting surfaced.

The two women had formed the firm in January 2004. They knew each other from participation at Hosanna! Lutheran Church in St. Charles, for which Day provided legal services.

From January to October 2004, Day took checks made out to the firm and altered them to make them payable to herself, including forging her partner's name. She would then deposit them in her personal account. She also wrote checks to herself from the firm's checking account and then altered the firm's ledger to misrepresent the purpose of the reimbursement. Additionally, she asked clients to make checks payable to her, not the firm.

Day faces a sentence of probation or between four and 15 years in prison. She remains free on $2,500 bond. No sentencing date has been announced.

The Supreme Court appeared divided between conservatives and liberals Wednesday over whether a cross on federal park land in California violates the Constitution.

Several conservative justices seemed open to the Obama administration's argument that Congress' decision to transfer to private ownership the land on which the cross sits in the Mojave National Preserve should take care of any constitutional questions.

"Isn't that a sensible interpretation" of a court order prohibiting the cross' display on government property? Justice Samuel Alito asked.

The liberal justices, on the other hand, indicated that they agree with a federal appeals court that ruled that the land transfer was a sort of end run around the First Amendment prohibition against government endorsement of religion.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the decisive vote in these cases, said nothing to tip his hand.

The tenor of the discussion suggested that the justices might resolve this case narrowly, rather than use it to make an important statement about their view of the separation of church and state.

The cross, on an outcrop known as Sunrise Rock, has been covered in plywood for the past several years following federal court rulings that it violates the First Amendment prohibition. Court papers describe the cross as being 5 feet to 8 feet tall.

A former National Park Service employee, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued to have the cross removed or covered after the agency refused to allow erection of a Buddhist memorial nearby. Frank Buono describes himself as a practicing Catholic who has no objection to religious symbols, but he took issue with the government's decision to allow the display of only the Christian symbol.

Democrats want to counter a recent Supreme Court ruling that makes it harder for older workers to prove they are the victims of age discrimination.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony Wednesday on a bill that would effectively nullify a high court decision that changed the interpretation of age bias laws.

The high court said it is not enough for employees to show age is a motivating factor in a demotion or layoff. Rather, workers must prove it is the deciding factor.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy says that sets the bar too high for discrimination victims.

The plaintiff in the case was invited to testify. He's Jack Gross, who was employed by an insurance company in West Des Moines, Iowa.

A year ago, amid the near-meltdown in the financial system, some senior bankers at Wall Street securities firms quit their jobs. They weren’t laid off or pushed. They simply decided that with the markets in the doldrums and regulation around the corner it simply wasn’t worth their while to stay, Anita Raghavan of Forbes reported.

Now a few are trickling back to Wall Street–a signal that the financial services industry, seen as a wasteland just a year ago, is regaining its luster. Among the notable returnees are Lewis Steinberg who left UBS in May to join the British law firm Linklaters as co-head of its American operation and head of its United States tax practice.

When he quit the Swiss bank, Mr. Steinberg was blunt about the reasons for his departure. “Four or five years ago, I felt a bank was an environment [in which] I could provide skills in an efficient way for my clients, and, to be frank, be well compensated for it,” Mr. Steinberg told Am Law Daily. “Now it’s no longer a friendly environment to do it. And I can actually give my clients better service [at a law firm]… I can be adequately compensated and perhaps better compensated.”

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Supreme Court justices on Tuesday indicated that a federal law aimed at graphic videos of dog fights and other acts of animal cruelty goes too far in limiting free speech rights.

The court heard argument on the Obama administration's appeal to reinstate a 10-year-old law that bans the production and sale of the videos. A federal appeals court struck down the law and invalidated the conviction of Robert Stevens of Pittsville, Va., who was sentenced to three years in prison for videos he made about pit bull fights.

Several justices suggested that the law is too broad and could apply, for instance, to people who make films about hunting.

"Why not do a simpler thing?" Justice Stephen Breyer asked an administration lawyer. "Ask Congress to write a statute that actually aims at the frightful things they were trying to prohibit."

But the lawyer, Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, said Congress was careful to exempt hunting, educational, journalistic and other depictions from the law. Katyal urged the justices not to wipe away the law in its entirety, but to allow courts to decide on a case-by-case basis whether videos are prohibited.

When Congress passed the law and then-President Bill Clinton signed it in 1999, lawmakers were especially interested in limiting Internet sales of so-called crush videos, which appeal to a certain sexual fetish by showing women crushing to death small animals with their bare feet or high-heeled shoes.

A former Yale University lab technician charged with strangling a graduate student and stuffing her body behind a laboratory wall appeared in court Tuesday, but did not enter a plea to murder.

Twenty-four-year-old Raymond Clark III appeared in an orange jumpsuit in New Haven Superior Court. He's accused of strangling 24-year-old Annie Le (LAY') of Placerville, Calif. His lawyers say he eventually will plead not guilty.

The judge scheduled a probable cause hearing for Oct. 20, in which sides will have the right to introduce evidence and call witnesses. Under Connecticut law, defendants accused of murder have the right to the hearing within 60 days of their arrest to decide if the case will go forward.

The judge said he will also consider at that hearing whether to extend a sealing order on the police arrest affidavit in the case.

Le was a pharmacology graduate student who vanished Sept. 8 from a Yale medical lab building. Her body was found in the building five days later, on what was supposed to have been her wedding day.

Police have not talked about a motive in the slaying, largely because Clark has not talked to authorities. Investigators and Yale officials have called Le's death a case of workplace violence, but have not elaborated.