Louis Bressler, 25, was convicted Wednesday in connection with the Dec. 1 death of Kevin Shields. He could be sentenced to as many as 24 years in prison and is to stand trial next month in the slaying of another soldier.

Jurors acquitted Bressler of first-degree murder after deliberation, first-degree murder in furtherance of a felony and aggravated robbery.

Bressler's lawyer argued that no physical evidence linked him to Shields' slaying and that two co-defendants, also Iraq war vets, conspired to frame him. The co-defendants have reached plea agreements in Shields' slaying and are serving prison terms.

Bressler is one of at least five Fort Carson soldiers who served in Iraq with the 4th Brigade Combat Team and who later were accused of various slayings at home over the past 15 months. A sixth team veteran faces attempted murder charges. An Army task force is investigating whether there are any common factors in the slayings.

Prosecutors said Bressler killed Shields because Shields knew too much about robberies that Bressler and fellow veterans Bruce Bastien Jr. and Kenneth Eastridge planned to commit. They also said Shields had beaten Bressler in a fight before the slaying. All four had been drinking heavily.

Shields' family said he was out celebrating both his birthday and news that his wife was pregnant with their second child.

The prosecution's case suffered a blow when co-defendant Bastien refused to testify against Bressler, in violation of his plea agreement. El Paso County District Judge Theresa Cisneros refused a request by Deputy District Attorney Jack Roth that Bastien be compelled to testify.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo alleged the rebel commanders planned and led an attack in September 2007 by about 1,000 heavily armed rebels on the Haskanita camp in Sudan's Darfur region that left 12 peacekeepers dead and eight wounded.

He has accused the rebels of committing war crimes, including murder, pillaging and deliberately attacking peacekeepers.

Rights groups welcomed the announcement as a sign that the international community will not tolerate attacks on peacekeepers.

"Civilians rely on peacekeepers for protection, and any hope for restoring security for civilians in Darfur depends on peacekeepers being able to do their job," Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Quan-Sheng Shu, 68, pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the federal Arms Control Act and one count of bribery at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Norfolk.

Shu is president of AMAC International Inc. of Newport News. He is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Shanghai.

Prosecutors said Shu, an expert in cryogenics, sold technology to China for the development of hydrogen-propelled rockets.

The Chinese government is developing a space launch facility in the southern island province of Hainan that will house liquid-propelled launch vehicles designed to send space stations and satellites into orbit.

Shu also was charged with bribing Chinese officials to award a $4 million hydrogen liquefier contract to a French company acting as an AMAC intermediary.

Shu received more than $386,000 in commissions for securing the contract, authorities said. He already had agreed to forfeit that money. His company also has offices in Beijing.

The scientist and his wife refused to comment as they left the courtroom. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed not to prosecute his wife for the role she allegedly played in the scheme.

Shu faces up to 10 years on each arms count and five years for the bribery charge and fines of up to $2.5 million. Sentencing is scheduled for April 6.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan M. Salsbury said Shu's conviction was the result of an ongoing FBI investigation, but he declined further comment after the hearing.

Federal authorities in recent years have prosecuted more than a dozen cases of either traditional spying or economic espionage related to China. U.S. officials have warned in the last year of increasing espionage efforts by Beijing.

Former state Sen. Wayne Bryant was found guilty on all 12 counts alleging he took a "low-show" job at a branch of the scandal-ridden University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey as a bribe for directing state money to the institution.

Later, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said Bryant was more brazen than other elected officials on the take.

"He stole in plain sight," Christie said of the Democrat who was one of the state's most powerful politicians. "He thumbs his nose at the public."

The scam was uncovered by a federal monitor assigned to investigate UMDNJ after it was discovered that UMDNJ double-billed for services covered by Medicare.

Prosecutors said Bryant had almost no legitimate responsibilities at UMDNJ's School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, which is in the southern New Jersey legislative district he represented.

Witnesses testified that he showed up on some Tuesday mornings and was seen reading the newspaper and talking on the phone in his office — but doing no other work.

But between 2003 and 2006 — when he worked for the school — officials said he boosted its funding from the state by at least $10.5 million.

Michael Gallagher, the dean who hired Bryant for the $35,000-a-year job at the school, was also convicted on one bribery charge and five mail fraud charges. He was acquitted on one mail fraud charge. His lawyers, Ralph Jacobs and Jeremy Frey, said they expected to appeal.

Bryant was also convicted of boosting his pension by taking another public-sector job at the Gloucester County Board of Social Services. Associates at his law firm did thousands of hours of work there, but he received pension credit for it, authorities said.

The five charges dealing with the pension were more complicated because there is no law against New Jersey elected officials holding other public-sector jobs or getting pension credit for work done by subordinates.

Gregory Bryant-Bey, 53, died by lethal injection at 10:41 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

Bryant-Bey's execution proceeded after the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied his request for a 60-day reprieve. He had wanted more time to present additional information about his case to Gov. Ted Strickland, who denied clemency Tuesday.

Bryant-Bey was the second inmate put to death in Ohio since the end of an unofficial national moratorium on executions that began last year while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed Kentucky's lethal injection procedure.

Bryant-Bey was convicted in the Aug. 9, 1992, robbery and killing of Dale Pinkelman, who owned a sports collectibles and coin shop.

He also faced a death penalty in the Nov. 2, 1992, killing of Peter Mihas, owner of The Board Room restaurant in downtown Toledo.

After police arrested Bryant-Bey for Mihas' death, similarities between the two crimes led to charges in Pinkelman's slaying.

A jury recommended life in prison for Bryant-Bey in the Mihas killing.

"The petitions raise issues of statewide importance, implicating not only California's marriage laws but also the initiative process and the Constitution itself," Attorney General Jerry Brown argued in his filing.

"This court can provide certainty and finality in this matter," he said.

Proposition 8, which passed with 52 percent of the vote earlier this month, overturned the high court's May decision legalizing gay marriage in California. The measure inserts language into the constitution limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

Gay and civil rights groups, the city of San Francisco and other plaintiffs have asked the court to void the measure on the grounds that voters did not have the authority to make, what they say, is a fundamental constitutional change.

There is no deadline for the justices to decide whether they'll take the cases.

The litigation has made unwitting allies of supporters of the same-sex marriage ban and the attorney general, who voted against the proposition. Over the summer, anti-gay marriage groups sued Brown after his office changed the measure's wording to reflect that it would take away a right that same-sex couples then had.