Booksellers, video game dealers, newspaper publishers and other critics of an online child protection law encountered skepticism from state Supreme Court justices Tuesday for their free-speech arguments.

A coalition led by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression has challenged laws throughout the country aimed at protecting children from online pornography and predators that they claim jeopardize protected speech among adults that might be linked to private chat rooms, listservs or e-mail.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Cincinnati has asked justices to resolve two key legal questions before moving forward on the Ohio lawsuit. The questions involve what is meant by the technical terms contained in the law: "mass distribution" and "personally directed devices."

Ohio Solicitor General Ben Mizer said the state law on distributing material harmful to minors was revised in 2004 to apply only to one-on-one communications by adults knowingly targeting kids. At issue Tuesday before the court was that rewrite.

The central figure in a huge New Jersey corruption investigation pleaded guilty to federal bank fraud and money laundering charges Tuesday.

Solomon Dwek's work for the government as a cooperating witness directly led to the arrests of 44 people in July, but it was his turn in court Tuesday.

Wearing a dark suit and light blue tie, the 37-year-old Dwek stood before U.S. District Judge Jose Linares and admitted his role in a multimillion-dollar bank fraud scheme in 2006. He acknowledged depositing two $25 million checks drawn on a closed account and using them to make wire transfers to separate banks totaling nearly $23 million.

Bank fraud carries a maximum prison sentence of 30 years, and the maximum for money laundering is 10 years, but Dwek would face nine to 11 years under federal sentencing guidelines. Linares can adjust that range up or down when he sentences Dwek on Feb. 9, and the U.S. attorney's office said it may recommend a lighter sentence based on Dwek's ongoing cooperation.

A federal judge on Tuesday revoked bail for former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and sent him to jail to await a corruption trial scheduled to start next week.

Calling Kerik "a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance," Judge Stephen Robinson said he was revoking the $500,000 bail because Kerik disclosed sealed case information to the trustee of his legal defense fund.

The trustee shared some of the secret information with the Washington Times, which didn't publish it. The judge said he did not believe Kerik's claim that the trustee had been hired as a lawyer and was therefore allowed to see the information.

Kerik was being jailed to make sure he was unable to "influence witnesses or prospective jurors," Robinson said.

"My fear is that he has a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance, and I fear that combination leads him to believe that his ends justify his means," Robinson said. "The failure of Mr. Kerik to abide by the direct order of this court ... must be appropriately addressed."

Kerik is charged with accepting apartment renovations from a construction company in exchange for recommending the company for city contracts. He has pleaded not guilty.

Defense lawyer Barry Berke said he would appeal the ruling and seek a stay, but he said he was unsure if that could be accomplished before the trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday.

At the end of the court session, Kerik took off his purple tie, emptied his pockets, removed a ring from his finger and gave them to his lawyer. He then walked off in custody.

A sex abuse case against Delaware's Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and a former priest will be delayed after the diocese filed for federal bankruptcy protection on the eve of trial.

The bankruptcy filing late Sunday delays a lawsuit that had been set to start Monday in Kent County Superior Court, the first of eight consecutive abuse trials scheduled in Delaware.

"This is a painful decision, one that I had hoped and prayed I would never have to make," the Rev. W. Francis Malooly, the bishop of the diocese, said in a statement on the diocese's Web site.

Wilmington is the seventh U.S. Catholic diocese to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since the church abuse scandal erupted seven years ago in the Archdiocese of Boston.

The Wilmington diocese covers Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland and serves about 230,000 Catholics.

Thomas Neuberger, an attorney representing 88 alleged victims, described the bankruptcy filing as a "desperate effort to hide the truth from the public and conceal the thousands of pages of scandalous documents" from being made public in court.

ma Supreme Court on Friday threw out jury decisions awarding the state more than $274 million from three pharmaceutical companies, ruling they did not defraud the state in pricing Medicaid prescription drugs.

The court overturned jury verdicts against the drug companies AstraZeneca, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, accused by the state of fraudulently manipulating prices of drugs for Medicaid recipients.

The court ruled 8-1 that the state did not have to rely on the drug companies' information in deciding what prices to pay pharmacists for prescription drugs for Medicaid recipients. The justices said state officials could have done their own research and determined the correct price.

The court ruled the state is continuing to rely on the same formulas established by the drug companies to set prices.

"The state has never altered its course of conduct since taking issue with the reporting methods," said the majority ruling written by Justice Tom Woodall.

Justice Tom Parker cast the lone dissent, saying there was no evidence the drug manufacturers made available to the state the confidential details they used in determining price information.

More than 70 lawsuits were filed in 2005 by the state against drug companies. The state has settled its lawsuits against 16 of the drug manufacturers for more than $124 million.

Attorneys for former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and ex-HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy said Wednesday they see a positive sign in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear the appeal of former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling.

Like Skilling, some of the charges against Siegelman and Scrushy involved charges that make it a crime to deprive the public of "the intangible right to honest services."

Critics have complained that the 28-word "honest services" law is vague and sometimes used by prosecutors when they are unable to prove another crime was committed.

Siegelman attorney Sam Heldman said the Supreme Court's decision to hear three different cases involving "honest services" charges is a sign that the law is "broad and confusing."

"It shows that some members of the court are concerned prosecutors are overreaching in this whole area of the law," Heldman said.

U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to comment.

Siegelman and Scrushy are waiting to hear if the U.S. Supreme Court will review appeals of their convictions in a government corruption case. They were convicted of bribery, "honest services" mail fraud and other charges in 2006. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year threw out two charges against Siegelman, but rejected most of his appeal and denied Scrushy's.

The two have also asked U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller in Montgomery to grant them a new trial, citing misconduct by prosecutors, inappropriate communications between jurors and other issues.

Siegelman was accused of appointing Scrushy to an influential hospital regulatory board in exchange for Scrushy arranging $500,000 in contributions to Siegelman's campaign for a statewide lottery. The appeals to the Supreme Court focus heavily on whether prosecutors proved that Siegelman and Scrushy had a "quid pro quo" agreement where they would each receive something of value.