``She came to accept that what she did was wrong,'' defense lawyer William Massey said before the hearing. ``She stood very firmly, for a very long time, in her belief that she was not guilty.''

In exchange for her plea, prosecutors dropped five more serious charges of extortion, each carrying a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Jarvis Malone, a former aide at the Arlington Developmental Center (ADC) in Arlington, Tenn., pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Memphis to violating the constitutional rights of a mentally handicapped patient. During his plea hearing, Malone acknowledged that in June 2005, while working as a developmental technician at the ADC, a state-operated residential treatment facility for the mentally handicapped, he stood the victim against a wall and assaulted the victim. According to evidence presented at the hearing, Malone assaulted the victim to punish him. Malone agreed that his conduct violated federal law.

Malone faces a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Oct. 16, 2007. “Civil rights laws are meant to protect all Americans, including the most vulnerable members of our society,” said Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department is committed to prosecuting those who set aside those laws and violate the constitutional rights of others.”

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to prosecute those individuals who violate the civil rights of other people. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation in their pursuit of ensuring that our citizens’ rights are protected,” said David Kustoff, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee.

“The outstanding efforts of our Medicaid Fraud Control Unit is proven here today. Behavior exemplified in this case will not be tolerated in the state of Tennessee. We appreciate the coordination of all the state and federal agencies whose hard work has brought justice,” said Mark Gwyn, Director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

The Civil Rights Division is committed to the vigorous enforcement of every federal criminal civil rights statute, such as laws that prohibit the wilful use of excessive force or other acts of misconduct by law enforcement officials. In fiscal year 2006, nearly 50 percent of the cases brought by the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division involved such prosecutions. Since fiscal year 2001, the Division has convicted 50 percent more defendants for excessive force and official misconduct than in the preceding six years.

This case was investigated by Special Agent Tracey Harris of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Parker of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Memphis and Trial Attorney Ed Caspar from the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice are prosecuting the case.

"This is a major victory for recording artists and record labels whose hard work and creativity provides the music around which the Internet radio business is built," SoundExchange executive director John Simson said. "Notwithstanding this victory, we continue to reach out to the webcasting community to reach business solutions."

SoundExchange was created to distribute the royalty following the 1995 Digital Performance Right in Sound Recording Act. The royalty is split 50-50 between copyright owner, typically a label but sometimes the artists or other entities, and the performer.

Webcasters had challenged the royalty, contending that a panel of copyright royalty judges erred when they dramatically increased the rate this year.

"Digital Media Assn. members and all Webcasters are disappointed by the court's decision and are now forced to make very difficult decisions about what music, if any, they are able to offer," executive director Jonathan Potter said. "The result will certainly be fewer outlets for independent music, less diversity on the Internet airwaves, and far fewer listening choices for consumers. We're hopeful that Congress will take steps to ensure that Internet radio is not silenced, and that Webcasters and SoundExchange will find a way to compromise and maintain the diversity and opportunity of Internet radio."

McGlone is accused of illegally distributing human growth hormone and steroids to body builders in several states, and allegedly got some of the drugs from a Florida-based pharmaceutical company charged by New York authorities in a larger steroid case.

Prosecutors say McGlone advertised in bodybuilder publications and recommended the drugs for anti-aging and weight-loss purposes. Federal law restricts the use or distribution of human growth hormone to specified medical uses, such as wasting disease associated with AIDS.

McGlone took orders over the phone and paid two New York doctors to write prescriptions for the drugs even though they never met or examined the patients, according to prosecutors.

He made more than $860,000 through the scheme between April 2004 and August 2006, prosecutors said. Authorities seized more than $125,000 and two Dodge Vipers from McGlone, according to federal court documents.

McGlone sent the prescriptions to pharmacies, including Orlando, Fla.-based Signature Pharmacy, according to prosecutors. The company is not charged in the Rhode Island case.

One doctor pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy and illegal drug distribution charges. The other doctor had initially agreed to plead guilty, then declined to do so at a court hearing last month.

In a March ruling, the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board said Webcasters raised the current $.0012 fee Internet broadcasters must pay per stream to $.0008 for 2006, $.0011 for 2007, $.0014 for 2008, $.0018 for 2009 and $.0019 for 2010.

Jonathan Potter, executive director of the Digital Media Association, which represents large Internet radio stations including Yahoo, RealNetworks, Live365 and Pandora, said the court loss would force Webcasters "to make very difficult decisions about what music, if any, they are able to offer," according to the report.

Potter still holds out a possible compromise from SoundExchange, the organization collecting royalty fees. Two previous attempts, including capping the fees and freezing royalties at 1998 levels, failed.

Washington could also intervene and either set aside the Royalty Boar's ruling or cap total royalties at a percentage of their revenue.

Ruiz was condemned for the July 14, 1992, fatal shooting of 29-year-old Theresa Rodriguez, killed in the garage at her home as she was getting out of her car and with her husband, Michael, and his brother, Mark, at the scene.

"I didn't think I was going to get a stay," Ruiz told prison officials. "I guess you could say I'm happy."

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons, who described Ruiz as "genuinely at a loss for words," said the prisoner "didn't seem like he had processed it yet.

"He apparently was expecting to go. He expected his execution to be carried out," she said.

Ruiz, who had a history of alcohol and drug dependency, implicated the brothers for hiring him for what authorities said was their plan to collect more than $250,000 in Theresa's life insurance.

The Rodriguez brothers eventually agreed to a plea deal, accepting life prison terms. But Michael Rodriguez later joined Ruiz on death row as one of the notorious Texas Seven, a group of inmates who escaped from a South Texas prison in 2000 and killed a Dallas-area police officer during a Christmas Eve sporting goods store holdup. He's awaiting execution and recently asked that all his appeals be dropped, but has no date for his lethal injection.

Ruiz's lawyers argued that a state-appointed lawyer in earlier appeals failed to identify Ruiz's substance abuse and poor childhood as mitigating evidence jurors should have been allowed to consider before they decided on a death sentence. A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit court, in a 2-1 vote, said in granting the stay that it needed more time to review the case.

The Ruiz case illustrated what lawyers Morris Moon and Chris Gober contended was the state's "knowing and deliberate indifference to a system" that failed to permit a proper review of death row convictions.

The arguments focusing on what they argued was shoddy legal help during crucial initial appeals failed to convince the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year refused to review his case.

"He's got rights but nobody ever talks about the victim and her rights because she's dead," said a disappointed Yolanda Dolmolin, the slaying victim's sister. "And all that's gotten lost in the last 15 years."

She and another sister and brother were among witnesses who had been waiting for several hours to see Ruiz die.

The shooting at the Rodriguez home in San Antonio came after Ruiz made two earlier unsuccessful attempts. After shooting her once in the head with a .357-caliber Magnum pistol, he ran to a car waiting for him on the street and drove off. Mark Rodriguez already had paid him $1,000, then gave him another $1,000 after the job was finished.

Joe Ramon, now 34, who accompanied Ruiz the night of the shooting, and Robert Silva, also 34, identified as the intermediary who put the Rodriguez brothers in touch with Ruiz, also wound up with life prison sentences.

Ruiz was arrested after a telephone tip to authorities and after Theresa Rodriguez's employer, the insurance firm USAA, offered a $50,000 reward for information about her slaying.

While in the Bexar County Jail awaiting trial, authorities believe Ruiz joined the Texas Syndicate, a notorious prison gang, and was involved in several disturbances resulting in assaults on officers and other inmates.

Scheduled to die next is Lonnie Johnson, 44, set for lethal injection July 24 for the shooting deaths of two Harris County teenagers and theft of their truck almost 17 years ago.