Prosecutors said Tuesday that 49-year-old Robert Powell of Hazleton falsified records to hide the true income of former Luzerne County judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan. They said Powell also transferred tens of thousands of dollars in cash to Conahan to avoid federal income taxes.

The former judges have pleaded guilty to accepting payoffs in exchange for placing juveniles in detention facilities operated by companies that Powell co-owned. Their sentencings are pending.

Powell's lawyer said Powell realized he made a mistake. He faces a maximum sentence of more than five years.

The Telegram & Gazette reports that Susan Johnson made the plea at her arraignment Wednesday in Worcester (WUH'-ster) Superior Court. She faces a variety of charges including armed assault with intent to murder and attempted murder. She was ordered held on $100,000 bail.

Prosecutors say the 39-year-old attacked the child in an apartment complex's laundry room in Gardner, about 70 miles northwest of Boston.

Authorities says she also tried to strangle the girl with a dryer's electrical cord.

Her lawyer says Johnson has a history of mental illness. She is scheduled back in court July 21.

A female nursery worker has been jeered and spat at when she appeared in court charged with sexual assault and making and distributing child abuse images.

Vanessa George, who worked at the Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth, was remanded in custody amid angry scenes in the city's magistrates' court.

George, 39, of Douglass Road, Plymouth, faces three counts of sexually assaulting a girl under 13 and one count of sexually assaulting a boy under 13.

She also faces three separate counts of making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children.

The court heard the charges range from January 2007 to this month.

George, wearing a white T-shirt and black trousers, spoke only to confirm her name and address. She entered no pleas, no application for bail was made and she will now appear at Plymouth Crown Court on September 21.

She was jeered and hissed by people in the public gallery as she emerged into the court, and when the charges were read out, parents cried and yelled and one man ran from the court in tears.

The casinos object to a law that forces them to transfer of millions of dollars to ailing horse tracks.

Last year, the state Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law. The high court let that ruling stand Monday without comment.

The renewal of the law in 2008 figures in the case against Blagojevich. FBI wiretaps on telephones in Blagojevich's home and the governor's office showed an alleged effort by the then-governor to shake down a racetrack owner for a sizable campaign contribution while the bill was pending. A lawyer for the owner, John Johnston, has said the contribution was not made.

Four secretly recorded conversations about the issue were played at Blagojevich's impeachment trial in the state Senate.

Kenneth Sodomsky wants the high court to suppress the videos found on his computer, which he had taken into a Circuit City in Wyomissing, Penn., to get a DVD burner installed into it. While the computer was in the store, a worker looked through some of the files and found movie files with "questionable" names referring to boys of various ages. The worker then found a video of a hand reaching toward a penis and called the police.

Police seized the computer, obtained a warrant and found child pornography. Sodomsky moved to suppress the discovery, saying the Circuit City employees had no right to search his computer and show any of its contents to police.

A trial judge agreed, but a state appellate court overturned that decision, saying Sodomsky ran the risk of his illegal files being found and viewed by taking the computer out of his house and to the store.

Circuit City Stores Inc. closed the last of its stores in March.

Darryl Littlejohn looked straight ahead as the jury verdict was read Wednesday.

The 44-year-old parolee faces up to life in prison in the 2006 death of criminal justice student Imette St. Guillen (ih-MET' saynt GEE'-yen) of Boston. His sentencing is set for July 8.

Littlejohn is already serving 25 years to life for kidnapping another woman.

The defense said Littlejohn was framed in the St. Guillen case, which stirred memories of New York's notorious "preppie killer" slaying and spurred a city crackdown on nightlife security.