Former Enron CEO Skilling in deal to cut prison term

(Reuters) - Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron Corp chief executive, has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors that could result in his 24-year prison term over the energy company's spectacular collapse being shortened by roughly a decade.

According to court papers on Wednesday, the government and Skilling have agreed to recommend that Skilling be resentenced at a June 21 hearing to a term of 14 to 17-1/2 years, a period that could be shortened for good behavior.

Skilling has already served more than 6-1/4 years in prison following his May 2006 conviction by a Houston federal jury on 19 counts of securities fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

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Former GM engineer, husband sentenced in trade secret theft case

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - A former General Motors Co engineer was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and her husband was sentenced to three years for conspiring to steal trade secrets for use in China, federal prosecutors said.

Former engineer Shanshan Du, 54, and her husband Yu Qin, 52, each received sentences well below the roughly eight to 10 years that the government had sought. Both were sentenced on Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Marianne Battani in Detroit.

Both defendants are U.S. citizens, and their case is part of a crackdown by the U.S. Department of Justice on trade secret theft, whether involving China or other countries.

Last November, a federal jury convicted Du and Qin on two counts each of unauthorized possession of trade secrets and one count of conspiracy to possess the secrets without permission.

Qin was also convicted on three counts of wire fraud and one count of obstruction of justice.

The defendants had been accused of taking confidential GM information from the Detroit-based automaker related to hybrid vehicles, and trying to pass it to competitors, including China's Chery Automobile Co, through their firm Millennium Technology International.

Investigators accused Du of copying more than 16,000 GM files soon after the automaker in January 2005 gave her a severance offer. They said Qin later claimed, while pitching his services, to have invented some of the stolen GM technology.

"These defendants stole trade secrets, which General Motors spent many years and millions of dollars to develop, to give an unfair advantage to a foreign competitor," U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade in Detroit said in a statement. "Stealing trade secrets harms Michigan businesses and costs jobs."

Prosecutors said GM has estimated that the value of the stolen documents exceeded $40 million. The defendants had argued that the documents in question were not trade secrets.

"I'm pleased that the judge went below the sentencing guidelines, and took into consideration Mr. Qin's contributions to the engineering field, his respect in that field, and his remorse," Qin's lawyer Frank Eaman said in an interview. He nonetheless said he was planning to appeal the conviction.

A lawyer for Du did not immediately respond to a request for a comment. McQuade's office was not immediately available for comment.

The case is U.S. v. Qin et al, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, No. 10-cr-02454.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Obama taps former lobbyist Wheeler as telecoms regulator

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated venture capitalist and former wireless and cable lobbyist Tom Wheeler to be the top media and telecommunications regulator.

If approved by the Senate, Wheeler would become chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at a time when the agency prepares for a major reshuffling of ownership of radio airwaves and tries to catch up to rapidly changing technology.

"For more than 30 years, Tom's been at the forefront of some of the very dramatic changes that we've seen in the way we communicate and how we live our lives," Obama said of Wheeler, who has advised his administration on telecom policy and helped raise large sums for his presidential campaigns.

"Tom knows this stuff inside and out."

Wheeler, who now chairs the FCC's Technology Advisory Council and invests in tech at Core Capital Partners, headed the National Cable Television Association in the 1980s. From 1992 to 2004 he was CEO of the wireless industry group CTIA.

"If anybody's wondering about Tom's qualifications, Tom is the only member of both the cable television and the wireless industry hall of fame," Obama said of Wheeler, who stood next to the president at the nomination announcement.

Wheeler would succeed current FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who plans to leave for the Aspen Institute think tank in coming weeks. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a senior Democrat on the panel, will take over as acting chairwoman until the Senate confirms Genachowski's replacement.

(Reporting by Alina Selyukh; Editing by Xavier Briand)

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Trial of former New Orleans mayor delayed until October

(Reuters) - The federal public corruption trial of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, which was scheduled to start in late April, has been delayed until October after a joint request by prosecutors and defense attorneys, a court order filed on Monday said.

Nagin, who had chided federal officials for their slow response after Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans, was accused in a grand jury indictment in January of taking kickbacks in exchange for city contracts.

The joint request for more time had said, "The nature of the present prosecution is complex and involves an extensive amount of electronic and documentary discovery."

The 21-count indictment included charges of bribery, money laundering, conspiracy and tax violations. Nagin, who now lives in Texas, pleaded not guilty to all charges in February before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan.

The trial had been scheduled to start on April 29, but was moved to October 7 under the order dated April 1 signed by U.S. District Judge Helen G. Berrigan.

Nagin was a little-known businessman when he won election in 2002 after wooing voters with promises to think outside the box and rid City Hall of patronage. He served eight years as mayor.

In 2005, after Katrina struck and several levees crumbled, Nagin's desperate plea for federal officials to "get off your asses" and help was heard worldwide. He was widely criticized after the storm for overseeing a halting recovery.

New Orleans has a history rich with political intrigue, but Nagin is the first mayor to face criminal charges.

(Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh)

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Former Zambian president arrested

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) -- Zambia's former president, Rupiah Banda, was arrested by police for alleged abuse of authority and corruption.

Banda, 76, who ruled Zambia from 2008 to 2011, was charged with corruption Monday and released on bail of Kwacha 500,000 ($100,000) and ordered to turn in his passport.

Namukolo Kasumpa, spokesperson for the government investigating team, told journalists that Banda will appear in court on Tuesday. Banda is also scheduled to be questioned by the investigating panel on April 4.

He is accused of stealing $11 million, part of which he had used on his re-election campaign of 20 September 2011. Banda has denied all the charges.

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Former rebels besiege Libyan premier's office

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — About 200 former rebel fighters in Libya have besieged the prime minister's office, demanding that he resign.

The militia members, who did not threaten violence, want Prime Minister Ali Zidan to step down in accordance with a political isolation law banning members of the former regime from political life.

He served as an ambassador under Moammar Gadhafi, who was ousted in an eight-month civil war.

The law is controversial because it bans anyone who worked with Gadhafi from 1969 until he was killed in 2011.

The prime minister's convoy was seen moving around the capital, Tripoli, last week with more security guards than usual — after an influx of militias from around the country.

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Former preacher found guilty in Craigslist murder case

AKRON, Ohio (Reuters) - An Ohio street preacher was found guilty on Tuesday of murdering three down-on-their-luck men who answered an ad for a non-existent job on Craigslist in 2011.

A jury deliberated for about 12 hours before returning the verdict against Richard Beasley, 53, who was accused of kidnapping and murdering David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Virginia; Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron; and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio.

The jury convicted Beasley of aggravated murder and kidnapping in the deaths of all three men.

It also convicted him of the attempted murder of Scott Davis, who answered the Craigslist ad and was shot in the arm while escaping after meeting Beasley and his teenage accomplice, Brogan Rafferty.

Rafferty, 18, was tried as an adult and sentenced in November to life in prison without parole for his role in the deadly scheme. He was 16 years old at the time of the crimes and not subject to the death penalty.

The jurors, who got Beasley's case late on Monday, will reconvene on March 20 to consider whether to recommend the death penalty.

(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Writing by James Kelleher; Editing by Greg McCune, Cynthia Johnston and Phil Berlowitz)

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Syrian opposition says captures former nuclear site

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian rebels have captured the site of a suspected nuclear reactor which Israeli warplanes destroyed six years ago, opposition sources in eastern Syria said on Sunday.

The site, about 60 km (35 miles) west of the city of Deir al-Zor, became the focus of international attention when Israel destroyed it in 2007. The United States said the complex was a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor geared to making weapons-grade plutonium.

Syria, which razed the site after the raid, said the complex was a regular military facility but refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency unrestricted access to the site.

Omar Abu Laila, a spokesman for the Eastern Joint Command of the Free Syrian Army, said the only building rebels found at the site was a hanger containing at least one Scud missile.

"It appears that the site was turned into a Scud launch base. Whatever structures it had have been buried," he said.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Former Fiat advisers found guilty of misleading market

TURIN, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian appeals court has handed two former Fiat advisers suspended jail sentences and fines for misleading the market in a 2005 stock transaction that secured the Agnelli family's control of the car maker.

Thursday's decision by Turin judges overturned a 2010 verdict by a lower court that had found the two advisers, lawyer Franzo Grande Stevens and former Agnelli family holding company executive Gianluigi Gabetti, not guilty.

Both men, who protested their innocence, were ordered to pay a fine of 600,000 euros ($793,300) each and were sentenced to 1 year and 4 months in jail, although the sentences were suspended meaning that neither of them will spend time in jail.

(Reporting by Jennifer Clark and Gianni Montani; Editing by Mark Potter)

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