Madoff employee to plead guilty in New York

Bernard Madoff, chairman of Madoff Investment Securities, returns to his Manhattan apartment after making a court appearance Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008 in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

  Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK -- Federal prosecutors say one of Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff's former controllers will plead guilty in New York to conspiracy charges in history's largest Ponzi scheme.

Prosecutors said in a letter to a judge late Tuesday that Irwin Lipkin will plead guilty at a court appearance Thursday.

The letter says the charges include a conspiracy to falsify records in a fraud that started in the early 1970s and ran through December 2008. The charges carry a potential penalty of 10 years in prison.

Lipkin was a controller at Madoff's firm. His lawyer didn't immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

Madoff pleaded guilty in 2009 to stealing billions through the fraud and says he acted alone. He's serving a 150-year prison sentence in Butner, N.C.

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Jury reaches guilty verdict in Drew Peterson case

  by DON BABWINJOLIET, Illinois -- Drew Peterson - the crass former Illinois police officer who gained notoriety after his much-younger wife vanished in 2007 - was convicted Thursday of murdering a previous wife in a potentially precedent-setting case centered on secondhand hearsay statements.

Peterson, 58, sat stoically looking straight ahead and did not react as the judge announced jurors had found him guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. Her relatives gasped, then fell into each other's arms and cried.

Illinois has no death penalty, and Peterson now faces a maximum 60-year prison term when sentenced Nov. 26.

The trial was the first of its kind in Illinois history, with prosecutors building their case largely on hearsay thanks to a new law, dubbed "Drew's Law," tailored to Peterson's case. That hearsay, prosecutors had said, would let his third and fourth wives "speak from their graves" through family and friends to convict Peterson.

Hearsay is any information reported by a witness that is not based on the witness' direct knowledge. Defense attorneys said its use at the trial would be central to their appeal.

Both relief and excitement showed on the faces of Savio's family members as they stepped out of the crowing courtroom. Her sister, Susan Doman, threw herself into the arms of her husband.

"Finally, finally, finally," Mitch Doman, Savio's brother-in-law, said as he and his wife cried. Seconds later, he looked up at a reporter and said with a smile, "We finally got that murdering bastard!"

Peterson's personality loomed large over the trial, illustrated by crowds of bystanders gathered outside the courthouse in a circus-like atmosphere, cheering as prosecutors walked by and shouting "Loser. Loser. Loser" at defense attorneys. People driving by honked their horns.

Before his 2009 arrest, the glib, cocky Peterson seemed to taunt authorities, joking on talk shows and even suggesting a "Win a Date With Drew" contest. His notoriety inspired a TV movie starring Rob Lowe.

"The whole world has been waiting for Drew Peterson to be convicted. They hate him," said defense attorney Joe Lopez, speaking to dozens of reporters outside over the booing and chants of detractors on a nearby sidewalk.

The verdict was a vindication for Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow and his team, who gambled by putting on a case they conceded was filled with holes. Glasgow, who is running for election this year, drew cheers from the crowd outside and chants of, "Four more years!"

"He was a thug," Glasgow said of Peterson, his voice rising in indignation. "He would threaten people because he had a gun and a badge. Nobody would take him on. But we took him on and he lost!"

The case began with a gruesome discovery.

A neighbor came across Savio's body on March 1, 2004. She was face down her dry bathtub, her thick, black hair soaked in blood and a 2-inch gash was on the back of her head.

The drowning death of the 40-year-old aspiring nurse was initially deemed an accident - a freak slip in the tub. After Peterson's fourth wife, 23-year-old Stacy Peterson, vanished in 2007, Savio's body was exhumed, re-examined and her death reclassified as a homicide.

Drew Peterson had divorced Savio a year before her death. His motive for killing her, prosecutors said, was fear that a pending settlement, which included their $300,000 home, would wipe him out financially.

The 12 jurors deliberated for more than 13 hours over two days before reaching a decision. The seven men and five women raised questions about whether they were taking the case seriously by donning different coordinated outfits each day of testimony, but did not wear matching attire Thursday.

Jurors didn't talk to reporters after the verdict. They issued a brief statement saying they believe their decision was just.

Fascination nationwide with the former Bolingbrook police sergeant arose from speculation he sought to parlay three decades of law enforcement expertise into getting away with murder.

Savio's brother, Nick Savio, grew emotional as he read a statement from the family outside court, calling Drew Peterson a "cold-blooded killer" and saying "everyone gets payback for what they have done to others.

"Stacy, you are now next for justice," Nick Savio declared as he finished speaking.

Prosecutors suspect Peterson killed his sandy-haired fourth wife because she could finger him for Savio's death, but her body has never been found and no charges have ever been filed. Jurors weren't supposed to link her disappearance to Savio's death, and prosecutors were prohibited from mentioning the subject.

Stacy Peterson's family said they hoped the conviction will lead to a break in Stacy's case. He says his fourth wife ran off with another man and is still alive.

Prosecutors faced enormous hurdles as they tried Peterson for Savio's death.

They had no physical evidence tying Peterson to Savio's death and no witnesses placing him at the scene. They were forced to rely on typically barred hearsay - statements Savio made to others before she died and that Stacy Peterson made before she vanished. Illinois passed the hearsay law in 2008, making the evidence admissible at trials in rare circumstances.

The hearsay included friend Kristin Anderson testifying that Savio told her Peterson once warned her at knifepoint, "I could kill you and make it look like an accident."

Stacy Peterson's pastor, Neil Schori, testified she told him that her husband got up from bed and left their house in the middle of the night around the time of Savio's death. Drew Peterson later coached his fourth wife on how to lie to police, Schori said.

Peterson's attorneys have said they may appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds Illinois' hearsay law is unconstitutional.

"It's a very dark day in American when you convict someone on hearsay evidence," Lopez said.

Some legal experts worried about the precedent a conviction dependent on hearsay would set, saying it could open the floodgates for the admissibility of such evidence in Illinois and elsewhere.

Prosecutors had to establish the most basic fact for a murder trial: that there was actually a murder. Pathologists testified for the defense that Savio's wounds indicated an accident; those testifying for the state said it was impossible for a single fall to cause both the wound on the back of her head and the bruises on the front of her body.

Prosecutors several times raised the judge's ire for broaching inadmissible subjects in front of jurors - issues that could also be cited in a defense appeal.' Peterson's band of colorful, wisecracking defense attorneys - who joked outside court that Stacy Peterson could show up any day to take the stand - committed their own share of errors. As they sought to blunt the credibility of hearsay, for instance, they ended up prompting their own witness to repeatedly emphasize that Stacy Peterson was convinced her husband killed Savio.

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Van der Sloot pleads guilty to killing Peru woman

  Eyewitness NewsLIMA, Peru -- Joran van der Sloot pleaded guilty on Wednesday to the 2010 murder of a young Peruvian woman he met at a Lima casino who was killed five years to the day after the unsolved disappearance in Aruba of an American teen in which he remains the main suspect.

"Yes, I want to plead guilty. I wanted from the first moment to confess sincerely," he told the panel of three judges that will decide his fate, hoping for a reduced sentence. "I truly am sorry for this act. I feel very bad."

Prosecutors are asking for a 30-year prison sentence under charges that carry a 15-year minimum.

The 24-year-old Dutch citizen did not show emotion during his brief confession in fractured Spanish and did not call on the services of a Dutch translator provided for the proceeding.

He bowed his head later when his lawyer, Jose Jimenez, argued that he killed Stephany Flores, 21, as a result of "extreme psychological trauma" he suffered from being "persecuted" over the disappearance of Natalee Holloway on the Caribbean island of Aruba, "something he says he never did and for which no evidence at all exists."

He said judges, in sentencing, should consider the "post-traumatic stress" his client suffered.

Conferring privately with Jimenez before leaving the courtroom, Van der Sloot briefly smiled.

The judges have 48 hours to render a sentence and the presiding magistrate, Victoria Montoya, said it would reconvene Friday to do so.

Van der Sloot's trial opened last week but was adjourned to Wednesday after he asked for more time to decide how to plead. He said then that he was inclined to confess but did not accept the aggravated murder charges the prosecution sought.

Van der Sloot, who wore faded jeans and an untucked light-blue button-down shirt, had confessed to the May 30, 2010, killing long ago.

He told police shortly after the murder that he killed Flores in a fit of rage after she discovered his connection to the disappearance of Holloway on his laptop while they played poker online. His lawyer argues it was manslaughter, for which the minimum sentence is 5 years.

Police forensic experts disputed that claim and the attorney for the victim's family contends Van der Sloot killed Flores, a business student from a prominent family, in order to rob her.

Prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder and theft.

The prosecution maintained Van der Sloot killed Flores with "ferocity" and "cruelty," beating then strangling her with his bare hands in his Lima hotel room, concealing the crime and fleeing to Chile, where he was caught two days after Flores' rotting body was found in his hotel room.

Prosecutors say he took more than $200 in cash plus credit cards from the victim and made his initial getaway in her car, leaving it in a different part of Lima.

The length of the sentence is completely at the judges' discretion, said court officials and a leading Peruvian criminal attorney, Luis Lamas.

The attorney for the family of the victim, Edwar Alvarez, has argued for life in prison and deemed a sentence reduction "unacceptable."

"In the court record, this man has submitted to psychological examinations and they have concluded that he is a psychopathic person," he told reporters. "What judge would give a psychopath a penal benefit?"

The victim's father, circus impresario and former race car driver Ricardo Flores, attended the opening of the trial but not Wednesday's hearing.

Reached by phone before Van der Sloot's plea, he said he could not bear to even watch the proceedings on TV.

"There is nothing in the is matter hurts us," he told The Associated Press.

Ricardo Flores told the AP Friday said the family, as a party to the trial, had planned to introduce testimony from friends of his daughter and casino employees proving that she won $10,000 there and that Van der Sloot had learned of it. He said the casino had videotape of his daughter cashing in the chips.

Video taken at the Atlantic City Casino where the victim met Van der Sloot shows the two leaving together, and closed-circuit images from the downmarket TAC hotel shows the pair entering together and Van der Sloot leaving alone hours later, bags packed.

After strangling Flores, Van der Sloot left the hotel room and, to hide the crime, bought two cups of coffee across the street, asking a hotel employee to open his room when he returned, Prosecutor Jose Santiesteban said in the trial's opening argument Friday.

Van der Sloot continues to be dogged by the case of Holloway, a Mountain Brook, Alabama, 19-year-old who disappeared during a high school graduation trip in 2005 to the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba where Van der Sloot grew up.

She was last seen leaving a nightclub with him. Her body has never been found.

The case received a storm of media attention and the tall, garrulous Dutchman became a staple of true-crime TV shows, in several interviews describing himself as a pathological liar. In a clandestinely taped conversation, he is seen telling a Dutch TV reporter he was involved in Holloway's disappearance.

Van der Sloot's trip to Lima may have been funded by continued fallout from that case.

U.S. officials, who indicted him on extortion and fraud charges days after the Flores killing, say Van der Sloot had just extorted $25,000 from Holloway's mother, Beth Holloway Twitty, by offering to lead her attorney, John Q. Kelly, to Holloway's body in Aruba.

After meeting with Kelly there, without delivering on his offer, he flew to Lima on May 14, 2010, they say. Two weeks later, Flores was killed.

Ricardo Flores said he doesn't think Van der Sloot is contrite over his daughter's death and wants the defendant placed in conditions of greater deprivation.

That could include being extradited to the United States to stand trial there once he's been sentenced in Peru.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Kelly said that after Van der Sloot is sentenced "we anticipate that U.S. authorities will move quickly to bring him to Alabama to face pending federal charges, and to answer for his past conduct in Aruba."

Peru's Foreign Ministry says it has no U.S. extradition request for Van der Sloot.

U.S. authorities have requested his arrest through Interpol "should he be released on the charges there" so he could be brought to Alabama, for trial, said Peggy Sanford, a spokeswoman the U.S. Attorney's office in Birmingham, Ala.

No members of Van der Sloot's family have attended the trial.

His lawyer said his client's mother, Anita, did not want the media attention. The defendant's father, a prominent lawyer, died of a heart attack at age 57 in February 2010.

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Joran van der Sloot hints he'll plead guilty

  Eyewitness NewsLIMA, Peru -- Joran van der Sloot asked for more time Friday to decide how to plead as his trial opened in the murder of a 21-year-old Peruvian woman. The Dutch citizen said he was inclined to confess but doesn't accept the aggravated murder charges sought by the prosecution.

The presiding magistrate of the three-judge panel ordered the trial to resume on Jan. 11.

When he was asked moments earlier by presiding judge Victoria Montoya to enter a plea, Van der Sloot answered: "I want to give a sincere confession, but I don't agree with all the charges that have been placed on me by the prosecutor. Can I have more time to think about this?"

The 24-year-old defendant, who is also the prime suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of U.S. teen Natalee Holloway, had repeatedly shaken his head as the prosecutor described for the three judges how Van der Sloot allegedly beat and strangled the victim, intending to rob her.

Van der Sloot long ago admitted to police that he killed Stephany Flores in his Lima hotel room on May 30, 2010.

But he claimed in that confession that he did it in a fit of rage after she discovered Van der Sloot's connection to Holloway's disappearance on Aruba, the Caribbean island where he was raised. Police forensic experts have disputed that version of events.

Defense attorney Jose Luis Jimenez told The Associated Press before the hearing that there was a 70 percent chance Van der Sloot would plead guilty, which could help him get a reduced sentence.

Prosecutors are seeking a 30-year prison sentence on murder and theft charges.

Jimenez contends his client was in a state of emotional distress when he killed Flores and would "seek to reduce the charge from first-degree murder to simple homicide."

The latter carries a prison sentence of from eight to 20 years.

Van der Sloot entered the courtroom in Lurigancho prison in Lima Friday morning in a blue blazer and faded blue jeans with a bulletproof vest beneath the jacket. He sported a crew cut and wore an untucked long-sleeved gray shirt.

He took off the vest in the courtroom, which lacked air conditioning, and fidgeted, yawning several times and slouching in his chair.

That drew Judge Montoya's reproach.

"Sit up straight and show some respect for the court," she told him.

The prosecutor, Jose Santiesteban, told the court Friday in summarizing his case that he would prove Van der Sloot "brutally attacked the victim, with cruelty in different parts of her body."

"He strangled her with his own hands," he said.

He said Van der Sloot then left the hotel room and, to hide the crime, bought two cups of coffee across the street, before asking a hotel employee to open his room when he returned.

He said Van der Sloot later left the room with 800 Peruvian soles (more than $200) in cash and the victim's credit cards.

Flores' father, Ricardo Flores, told the AP that he has no doubt that Van der Sloot preyed on his daughter because he was hard up for money and had learned she had just won $10,000 at the casino where they had met while playing poker.

He said casino employees and two of his daughter's friends were prepared to testify to that effect.

Video taken at the casino show Van der Sloot leaving with Stephany Flores in the wee hours of May 30, 2010, and closed-circuit video taken at the defendant's hotel shows the two entering together and then Van der Sloot leaving alone hours later, bags packed.

"I think its good for the family if this concludes rapidly," Ricardo Flores, a circus promoter and former race car driver, told the AP.

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Associated Press writers Franklin Briceno and Carla Salazar contributed to this report

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'Barefoot Bandit' to plead guilty in federal court

This is a July 2009 file self-portrait provided by the Island County Sheriff's Office showing Colton Harris-Moore, the so-called "Barefoot Bandit." ( (AP Photo/Island County Sheriff's Office via The Herald, File))

  Eyewitness NewsSEATTLE -- The 20-year-old Washington state man who gained fame last year as the "Barefoot Bandit" was expected to plead guilty to criminal charges stemming from his 2-year run from the law in stolen boats, cars and planes, federal officials said Thursday.

Colton Harris-Moore will plead guilty on Friday in federal court, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle said. No further comment was provided.

Authorities say Harris-Moore hopscotched his way across the United States during his run, frequently stealing cars from parking lots after landing at small airports. In Indiana, he stole another plane and made for the Bahamas, where he was captured at gunpoint in a stolen boat last July.

Harris-Moore earned the "Barefoot Bandit" moniker by committing some of crimes without shoes. He pleaded not guilty to a federal indictment last week, but his lawyers had signaled that a deal with prosecutors was close.

One of Harris-Moore's attorneys, Emma Scanlan, confirmed Thursday that he would plead guilty.

She declined to comment on the plea deal except to say it included a sentencing recommendation and resolves the question of whether he could participate in book or movie deals, with proceeds used to repay victims. Harris-Moore's lawyers have said restitution from his run would total about $1.3 million.

Harris-Moore's escapades earned him cult status as an authority-mocking folk hero, and federal prosecutors have expressed reluctance to let him sell his story because it could compound the publicity he's received.

The federal charges stem from a spate of crimes in late 2009 and early 2010, when Harris-Moore is accused of flying a stolen plane from Anacortes, in northwestern Washington, to the San Juan Islands. Authorities say he then stole a pistol in eastern British Columbia and took a plane from a hangar in Idaho, where investigators found bare footprints on the floor and wall. That plane crashed near Granite Falls, Wash., after it ran out of fuel, prosecutors say.

He made his way to Oregon in a 32-foot boat stolen in southwestern Washington - stopping first to leave $100 at an animal shelter in Raymond, Wash. From Oregon, authorities said, Harris-Moore hopscotched his way across the United States until he made it to the Bahamas.

In all, Harris-Moore is suspected of more than 70 crimes across nine states.

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