A fashion designer convicted of sexually assaulting aspiring models has asked a judge for a new trial, citing alleged juror and prosecutorial misconduct.

Anand Jon Alexander, awaiting sentencing, made an eloquent and impassioned plea Monday for a new trial. The 35-year-old, who is representing himself, says the jury that convicted him in November of 14 counts was not fair or impartial.

Superior Court Judge David Wesley denied Alexander a new trial earlier when the motion was made by a team of attorneys for the designer. He did not rule on Alexander's motion before breaking for lunch.

The designer has been featured on the television show "America's Next Top Model" and worked with such celebrities as Paris Hilton and Mary J. Blige.

A U.S. military contractor accused in a scheme to illegally ship nearly $300 million in Chinese-made ammunition to Afghan soldiers has agreed to a plea deal that could send him to prison for up to five years.

Under the deal, prosecutors will drop 84 counts of wrongdoing in exchange for 23-year-old Efraim Diveroli pleading guilty to a conspiracy charge. He could also be fined up to $250,000.

Diveroli was president and owner of AEY Inc., the Miami Beach firm awarded a $298 million U.S. Army contract in 2007 to provide the ammunition to Afghanistan. The contract forbade exporting Chinese ammunition, but prosecutors say the company did it anyway and claimed the rounds were from Albania.

AEY bought much of the ammunition from Albania's Military Export and Import Co., which had purchased huge amounts of Chinese ammunition from 1958 to 1974. Authorities say AEY then repackaged it to remove all traces of the Chinese manufacturer and provided the Army with written certification that the ammunition had come from Albania.

Congressional investigators also found in 2008 that AEY provided potentially unsafe helmets to troops in Iraq, failed to deliver 10,000 pistols to Iraq, and shipped inferior ammunition to U.S. Army special forces. The Pentagon and State Department have terminated or withdrawn numerous contracts with AEY over failure to perform, according to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

A federal judge on Monday may set a date for a competency hearing for the man charged with the 2002 abduction of Elizabeth Smart.

Brian David Mitchell, however, was not expected to attend the hearing in U.S. District Court.

Federal prosecutors sought the hearing in June and implied that two doctors who evaluated Mitchell reached different conclusions about his ability to participate in his defense.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lambert has said a hearing could take 10 days. Court documents show prosecutors plan to call about 39 witnesses, including family, friends, former church leaders and staff at the Utah State Hospital, where Mitchell has been incarcerated for most of the last six years.

In court papers filed last week, Mitchell's defense attorney, Robert Steele, asked a judge to shorten the list in part because most of the proposed witnesses are not qualified to provide an assessment of competency. In addition, the information could potentially date back to Mitchell's childhood and have little relevance to his current mental state, Steele wrote.

Similarly, testimony from state hospital staff is irrelevant because Mitchell has been in the Salt Lake County jail since federal prosecutors took him into custody 10 months ago, court papers say.

A federal appeals court on Monday dealt another body blow to Delaware's plans for a new sports betting lottery, saying it must be limited to parlay bets on professional football games.

A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared last week that Delaware's sports betting plan, which included single-game bets and wagering on a variety of professional and collegiate sports, violated federal law but it did not expressly say why.

On Monday, the panel outlined its reasoning in a 23-page opinion. The court said it interpreted language that exempted Delaware from a 1992 federal ban on sports gambling — known as the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act — as precluding any type of betting beyond what it had offered in a failed National Football League lottery in 1976.

That lottery allowed only parlay bets, which means bettors had to pick the winners of at least three separate NFL games in a single wager.

"Thus, any effort by Delaware to allow wagering on athletic contests involving sports beyond the NFL would violate PASPA," Judge Thomas Hardiman wrote for the court. "It is also undisputed that no single-game betting was 'conducted' by Delaware in 1976, or at any other time during the time period that triggers the PASPA exception."

A man accused in a scheme to illegally ship nearly $300 million in Chinese-made ammunition to the Afghan military has agreed to a plea deal that recommends he serve just two years of probation.

Under the deal, prosecutors will drop 84 counts of wrongdoing in exchange for 23-year-old Efraim Diveroli of Miami Beach pleading guilty to a conspiracy charge. He will also be fined $500,000.

Diveroli's AEY Inc. was awarded a $298 million U.S. Army contract to provide the ammuminition to Afghanistan. The contract forbade exporting Chinese ammunition, but prosecutors say the company did it anyway and claimed the rounds were from Albania.

Sentencing is scheduled for November 10.

A rural Virginia sheriff accused of taking bribes in exchange for promising not to interfere with a cockfighting ring has pleaded guilty to racketeering.

According to court documents, former Page County Sheriff Daniel Presgraves entered the plea Friday. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

Presgraves had faced racketeering, conspiracy and other charges, including that he sexually assaulted and harassed female employees. Another indictment in June charged him with lying to an FBI agent.

Those charges were dropped as part of the plea agreement.