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The star prosecution witness in the trial of convicted Texas financier R. Allen Stanford was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison for helping to bilk investors out of more than $7 billion in one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history.

A court in Nicaragua gives maximum jail sentences to 18 people caught crossing the border with $9.2m while posing as journalists from Mexican TV.

A Michigan woman spent 11 days behind bars for cursing to herself in a county clerk's office before a retiring superior court judge mercifully overruled the judge who jailed her and ordered her release.

Former Argentine finance minister Felisa Miceli is sentenced to four years in jail for corruption after about $52,000 was found in her office bathroom. A court found her guilty of covering up an allegedly illegal financial operation and of obstructing justice.

The brother of imprisoned financier Bernard Madoff was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for crimes committed in the shadow of his notorious sibling by a judge who said she disbelieved his claims that he did not know about the epic fraud.

The owner of a Houston daycare center where four toddlers died in a fire that started after she left the children unattended to go shopping was sentenced on Tuesday to 80 years in prison for a felony murder conviction in one of the deaths.

The California man behind an anti-Muslim film that led to violence in many parts of the Middle East was sentenced Wednesday to a year in federal prison for probation violations in an unrelated matter, then issued a provocative statement through his attorney. The sentence was the result of a plea bargain between lawyers for Mark Bassely Youssef and federal prosecutors. Youssef admitted in open court that he had used several false names in violation of his probation order and obtained a driver's license under a false name. He was on probation for a bank fraud case.

A court in Milan Friday convicted former Premier Silvio Berlusconi of tax fraud and sentenced the media mogul to four years in prison, his first prison sentence in years of criminal probes. The 76-year-old billionaire businessman -- who just two days ago said he would not run in Italy's spring election -- is expected to remain free until the appeals process is exhausted. In Italy, cases must pass two levels of appeal before verdicts are final.

The Paris appeals court on Wednesday ordered former Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel to spend three years in prison and pay back a staggering (EURO)4.9 billion (about $7 billion) in damages for one of the biggest trading frauds in history....

A gay man sued a Kentucky jail and a fellow inmate Tuesday, saying the other prisoner bit off part of his nose after harassing him for days. The suit says that Brandon Milam, of Bowling Green, Ky., was sitting on his bed on July 2 when Timothy Schwartz, the other inmate, approached him, pinned him against the wall and began punching his face.