Forty-five-year-old John Fautenberry of Oregon was pronounced dead at 10:37 a.m. Tuesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

Fautenberry was sentenced to death for the slaying of Joseph Daron Jr., who picked him up while he was hitchhiking on Feb. 17, 1991.

Fautenberry also confessed to killing a four people in three other states — Alaska, Oregon and New Jersey — during a five-month period in late 1990 and early 1991.

Fautenberry is the first inmate executed in Ohio since June 3.

Ohio has put 30 men to death since it reinstated the death penalty in 1999.

James M. Davis, accused of helping financier R. Allen Stanford swindle investors in a $7 billion fraud, pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in a U.S. court and was released on bail.

Davis, 60, who was chief financial officer at Stanford Group Co., one of the companies implicated in the alleged plot, will change his plea to guilty at a hearing before U.S. District Judge David Hittner in Houston within the next two weeks, his lawyer said.

“We don’t have an agreed sentence,” David Finn, Davis’s attorney, said after today’s arraignment. “It’s going to be completely the judge’s call.”

Davis, who prosecutors said faces as many as 30 years in prison, was released by U.S. Magistrate Judge Calvin Botley on $500,000 bond with a $5,000 cash deposit, with his in-laws and son as co-signers. Finn entered today’s plea on Davis’s behalf, repeating his intention to change the plea after the government has time to notify victims, as required by federal law.

Stanford and four other people were indicted by a Houston federal grand jury for their roles in an alleged scheme that included the sales of certificates of deposit through Antigua- based Stanford International Bank Ltd. Stanford has denied all charges of wrongdoing.

Davis, the second-highest ranking executive in the Stanford Financial Group of Companies, was charged separately from the other defendants and waived indictment. During most of today’s proceeding, Davis rocked back and forth on his heels with his hands clasped before him, appearing somber in a black business suit. He left the courthouse holding hands with his wife, Lori, without speaking to reporters.

The new arrests, both in a nearby county, bring the total to six.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office confirmed the arrests but declined to identify the latest suspects or release other details.

A spokeswoman said that information would be announced later Tuesday by authorities from Escambia County, where Byrd and Melanie Billings were killed. They were shot to death at their home near Pensacola last week by several intruders caught on surveillance cameras.

The couple had 17 children — four biological and 13 adopted. Nine children were at the home when the Billingses were killed.

At the same time, Liz Cheney accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats of seeking to politicize lingering arguments over how the Bush administration conducted the war against terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Asked directly on MSNBC whether her father directed the CIA not to keep Congress fully informed about the secret program, Cheney said, "This is a classified program and he doesn't talk about classified programs."

An official with direct knowledge of the program had said earlier that CIA Director Leon Panetta, according to notes he'd been given in the early months of the program, Cheney had told the CIA not to inform Congress of the specifics of the effort. Panetta canceled the program on June 23. Officials have said the program was aimed at going after officials of the terrorist network individually rather than through air attacks in an effort to limit civilian casualties.

Liz Cheney, a former principal deputy secretary of state for Mideast affairs during George W. Bush's presidency, is helping her father write his memoirs. She aggressively defended him in Tuesday's nationally broadcast interview while declining to say point-blank whether he had violated any law or rule.

Orion G. Callison, III has opened The Callison Law Firm P.A. in Miami, Florida. The firm's practice will primarily focus on commercial litigation, labor and employment law, and education law. Mr. Callison is a 1988 graduate of Columbia University School of Law, where he was a member of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1985, with highest honors. The firm has a website at www.callisonlawfirm.com.