The former head of a mortgage lending company accused of scheming to steal more than $500 million from the government's financial bailout fund has pleaded not guilty in the case.

Lee Bentley Farkas entered the not guilty plea Friday in Alexandria, Va., to charges including conspiracy, bank fraud and wire fraud in connection with the alleged plot at Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Corp.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema set a Nov. 1 trial date despite protests from Farkas' lawyer that it will be impossible for the defense to go through the millions of pages of documents in the case by that time.

Farkas still doesn't have a permanent lawyer because his assets have been frozen. However, the government is expected to unfreeze some of them so he can pay for his defense.

A former trucker serving at least 75 years in prison for knife attacks on women in New Jersey and Massachusetts will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to similar charges in Pennsylvania.

Forty-five-year-old Adam Leroy Lane pleaded guilty Monday to charges stemming from the July 2007 murder of a Pennsylvania woman and an attack on another. The plea deal allows him to escape the death penalty.

Dauphin County Judge Todd Hoover sentenced Lane to life imprisonment for the murder of Darlene Ewalt outside her Harrisburg-area home. Lane was also sentenced to a consecutive 10- to 20-year term for attacking a woman in her rural home north of York.

Prosecutors say the North Carolina man randomly attacked his victims at their homes near the highways he traveled.

A 36-year old Dutch man conned thousands of pounds out of show jumpers and horse riding fans by claiming to be the son of a big boss at IBM.

George Carlo Schouten of Finchampstead, Berkshire said his old man was helping out by sponsoring his show jumping team, a Reading court heard yesterday.

He convinced one of Britain's best female riders to join the fictional team and persuaded others to spend thousands of pounds on providing IBM-branded clothes and other kit for the team.

Baton Rouge rapper Torrence "Lil Boosie" Hatch has pleaded not guilty to several charges including first-degree murder.

Hatch appeared Monday before state District Judge Mike Erwin.

Hatch's attorney, Marcus Allen, spoke after the hearing and said Hatch is "absolutely not guilty."

The Advocate reports that Hatch is accused of paying a man to kill 35-year-old Terry Boyd, who was shot to death through a window while inside his home on Oct. 21. Two other Baton Rouge men also face first-degree murder charges in Boyd's death.

Vivendi on Friday hailed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling limiting foreign shareholders' rights to seek compensation in the United States.

Vivendi is trying to exclude French shareholders from a U.S.-based class action lawsuit on whether it misled investors about its financial health.

The entertainment-to-telecoms group said it was very satisfied with a U.S. ruling on Thursday, which dismissed a suit against National Australia Bank Ltd (NAB.AX) by foreign investors seeking damages in a New York court.

The Supreme Court ruled foreign investors who bought shares of National Australia Bank on an overseas stock exchange cannot sue in a New York court over large writedowns tied to the bank's onetime U.S. mortgage unit.

The justices upheld a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that American courts did not have jurisdiction.

Defense attorneys plan to seek the release of a Kansas doctor and his wife while they appeal their convictions on charges they conspired to profit from illegally prescribing painkillers to patients who later died.

Jurors found Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, guilty Thursday. Prosecutors linked their suburban Wichita clinic to 68 overdose deaths.

The Schneiders also were found guilty of unlawfully writing prescriptions and health care fraud.

No sentencing date has been set. Each faces up to a life sentence.

Linda Schneider's attorney, Kevin Byers, blames the guilty verdict on a national crackdown on doctors caught in the middle of a federal policy dispute over the drugs.