Prison, Jail | featured news

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.

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.

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.

A Phoenix woman accused of pretending to have cancer to raise money for breast implants was sentenced on Wednesday to one year in jail, local media reported.

The attorney for an Ohio death-row inmate set for execution says the condemned man is sorry for killing two strangers 23 years ago and wants to give their families justice.

After 49 years behind bars, the nation's longest-serving female inmate is free. Betty Smithey, 69, whose prison term began following her conviction for the murder of a 15-month-old Phoenix girl in 1963, appeared at a parole hearing Monday morning and by that afternoon walked, with the aid of a cane, out of the gates of the Perryville state prison.

The U.S. is locking up more illegal immigrants than ever, generating lucrative profits for the nation's largest prison companies, and an Associated Press review shows the businesses have spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers and contributing to campaigns....

A man convicted of stealing a gun used in a murder was given 125 years in prison — about a century longer than the actual killers received after taking plea deals. Christopher G. Nichols, 27, was sentenced Tuesday for gun theft, trafficking in stolen property, being a felon in possession of firearms and other crimes, The Spokesman-Review reported ( http://is.gd/BOKh1e ) .

Eight years after he was convicted for the murders of his wife and unborn son, Scott Peterson has appealed his death sentence to the California Supreme Court.

Everyone's made a joke they thought was funny only to see it fall flat, but Park Jung-geun's attempt at humor could see him jailed for up to seven years in South Korea. Park, a photographer by profession, re-tweeted some messages from North Korea's official twitter feed, such as reports on the late leader Kim Jong Il's travels across the country and negative tweets about South Korea.