Ex-Akamai worker to plead guilty to spy charge (AP)

BOSTON – A former employee of a website content delivery company has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of foreign economic espionage for providing company trade secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

Elliot Doxer, 42, will admit to providing trade secrets from Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies Inc. over an 18-month period to the agent, whom he believed was an Israeli spy, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts said in a statement. A plea hearing is scheduled for Aug. 29.

Doxer's attorney, Thomas J. Butters, did not return messages left after business hours Thursday.

Doxer, of Brookline, worked in Akamai's finance department at the time he committed the alleged offenses. Prosecutors said he sent an email to the Israeli consulate in June 2006 and offered to provide any information he had access to in order to help that country in exchange for $3,000.

Doxer said his main goal was "to help our homeland and our war against our enemies," prosecutors said.

Israeli officials contacted U.S. authorities about the offer. An FBI agent went undercover and posed as an Israeli agent in September 2007, and arranged to use a "dead drop" location to exchange information with Doxer to avoid detection. From then until March 2009, Doxer visited the drop location at least 62 times and provided an extensive list of Akamai's customers and employees, including their full contact information, and contract details, according to prosecutors.

He also allegedly described Akamai's physical and computer security systems and said he could travel to Israel and support special operations in his local area if needed.

Akamai previously said that it had cooperated with the FBI. The firm also noted that there is no evidence that Doxer actually gave information to a foreign government.

Authorities arrested Doxer in August and charged him with one count of wire fraud. That charge will be dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

The espionage charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a three-year term of supervised release and a $500,000 fine.

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Alaskans plead guilty to trading for walrus ivory (AP)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Two men accused of participating in a walrus ivory and polar bear hide trading ring have pleaded guilty to breaking federal marine mammal laws, and a third person is expected to plead guilty on Tuesday.

Federal agents found hundreds of pounds of walrus tusks and two polar bear hides when they searched the home of Jesse James LeBoeuf and his companion, Loretta Sternbach, in April, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

LeBoeuf and Sternbach were accused of trading cigarettes, guns, snowmachines and other items to Natives in the village of Savoonga in exchange for federally protected animal parts. Co-conspirator Richard Weshenfelder marketed the tusks and hides on the Internet and helped sell the parts to out-of-state buyers, a federal indictment said.

LeBoeuf and Sternbach also illegally sold and transported walrus parts and tusks to out-of-state buyers, the indictment said.

By law, only Natives living on the Alaska coast can hunt the mammals, and they can't sell the raw ivory to private collectors.

Authorities believe the trading was done in two trips to Savoonga on Saint Lawrence Island, which lies in the Bering Strait between mainland Alaska and Russia. LeBoeuf and Sternbach live in Glennallen, about 180 miles northeast of Anchorage.

Weshenfelder, of Anchorage, and LeBoeuf pleaded guilty on Friday. Sternbach is set to enter a guilty plea on Tuesday.

"Sir, I just did what I did to get along in life," LeBoeuf told U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess

Prosecutors are seeking a nine-year sentence for LeBoeuf and a five-year sentence for Weshenfelder. All three defendants are expected to be sentenced in November.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Yvonne Lamoureux declined to comment on the possibility of charges for the ivory suppliers.

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Information from: Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com

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NY pharmacy shooting suspect to plead not guilty (AP)

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – A New York man accused of killing two pharmacy employees and two customers during a holdup for prescription painkillers is expected to plead not guilty Thursday to murder and other charges.

A court-appointed attorney for 33-year-old David Laffer, of Medford, is to enter the pleas to upgraded charges in a Long Island courtroom when a grand jury indictment is unsealed.

Laffer and his wife, 29-year-old Melinda Brady, were arrested June 22 in their suburban home a mile and a half from Haven Drugs, where authorities say he opened fire on the victims before jamming a backpack full of prescription painkillers.

Prosecutors have called the killings, which were captured on a drugstore surveillance camera, "the most cold-blooded robbery-homicide in Suffolk County history."

The four deaths were the worst mass killing on Long Island since a gunman opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road train in 1993, killing six commuters.

Laffer, who was originally charged with one count of first-degree murder and resisting arrest, is being held without bail in protective custody in the county jail. His wife is being held on $750,000 bail on allegations of driving the getaway car.

She has cooperated with investigators, police have said, but prosecutors say she also faces the likelihood of upgraded charges from a grand jury in coming days.

Authorities have not said whether the painkillers were recovered after the holdup, but Police Commissioner Richard Dormer noted both were high on drugs when they were arrested.

The victims included the 45-year-old pharmacist who was working so a colleague could enjoy Father's Day and a 17-year-old clerk who was days away from her high school graduation.

A 71-year-old man picking up medication for his ailing wife and a 33-year-old mother of two who was planning to be married this year were shot in the back of the head when they unwittingly walked in on the carnage, police said.

Prosecutors say Laffer left with painkillers "of the hydrocodone family." His fingerprints were found on a piece of paper left on the store's countertop, according to a prosecutor. But defense attorney Mary Beth Abbate has suggested Laffer was a frequent customer and could have left his fingerprints there some other time.

More troublesome for the defense is the surveillance video that captured the massacre, although the suspect in the shooting wore a beard, hat and mask. Laffer was clean-shaven when he was arrested.

Brady blamed her husband when she was led from police headquarters to a nearby precinct holding cell following her arrest last week. "He was doing it because he lost his job and I was sick," Brady said. "He did it. He did all of this," she told reporters.

She had previously posted messages on a website discussing her difficulty with painkillers.

Laffer served in the Army from 1994 until 2002 and attained the rank of private first class, said Mark Edwards, a spokesman for the Army Human Resources Command in Fort Knox. While in the service, he worked as an intelligence analyst.

Media reports have said he lost his job at a Long Island warehouse several weeks ago.

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Pa. kidnap hoax mom set to plead in fraud case (AP)

PHILADELPHIA – A suburban Philadelphia woman who staged a hoax kidnapping in 2009 that ended at Disney World appears poised to plead to a $700,000 financial scheme.

Bonnie Sweeten of Feasterville has been incarcerated since telling 911 operators that two black men kidnapped her and her 9-year-old daughter. They later surfaced at a Disney hotel.

The 40-year-old paralegal is set to plead Tuesday rather than go to trial in the fraud case. Sweeten is charged with stealing money from an elderly relative and a law firm. Investigators were closing in on her when she fled.

Sweeten served nearly a year in prison for the false 911 call and remains incarcerated on the fraud charges.

She has three daughters from two marriages and has said her life unraveled amid marital and other stresses.

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Strauss-Kahn to plead for bail in New York court (AFP)

NEW YORK (AFP) – Ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was due back in court Thursday hoping to win bail from a gritty New York jail, just hours after quitting as head of the world body to fight sex charges.

Strauss-Kahn vowed in his letter of resignation as head of the International Monetary Fund that he would battle to clear his name after being charged with seven counts of sexual assault, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.

"I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me," said Strauss-Kahn, who was arrested on Saturday shortly after the alleged assault of a chambermaid in a luxury Manhattan hotel.

The veteran French politician said in a statement that it was with "infinite sadness that I feel compelled today to present... my resignation."

"I want to devote all my strength, all my time, and all my energy to proving my innocence," said Strauss-Kahn, who before the scandal broke was considered a top contender to be the next president of France.

A police official confirmed to AFP that he had arrived at the New York supreme court complex Thursday and was awaiting to appear at the bail hearing due at 2:15 pm (1815 GMT) on the 13th floor of the courthouse.

Defense lawyers said Strauss-Kahn would put up $1 million in bail, surrender all his travel documents and submit to 24 hour electronic monitoring.

He would also agree to be confined round-the-clock in a New York apartment, most likely the home of his daughter who lives in the city. And he is ready to waive any rights he has to fight any extradition proceedings.

His lawyers were also expected to tout his wife's American credentials before judge Michael Obus, hoping to free him from Rikers Island jail.

The New York jail is a chaotic maze of holding cells filled with thousands of defendants who either can't afford bail or who, like Strauss-Kahn, are deemed a flight risk and have had their bail application denied.

The complex, which sits on a 400-acre (1,650 kilometer) island on the East River near LaGuardia airport between Queens and the Bronx, can house more than 20,000 detainees and staff at a time.

Strauss-Kahn was refused bail in his first court hearing Monday, after a different judge deemed him a flight risk, and he has now spent three nights in the notorious jail in isolation and on suicide watch.

"These additional bail conditions eliminate any concern that Mr Strauss-Kahn would or could leave this court's jurisdiction," attorney Shawn Naunton wrote in the bail application.

Strauss-Kahn is behind bars awaiting a grand jury decision on whether to indict him on the charges brought by the 32-year-old chambermaid, who is originally from Guinea.

Her lawyer, Jeff Shapiro, said his client, who has so far not been identified, was "alarmed" at the prospect of her alleged attacker leaving jail.

"The idea that this man would somehow or another be on the streets and free, I'm sure it would cause her a great deal of concern," he told CNN Wednesday. "She's very concerned about her security."

The chambermaid, who has a 15-year-old daughter, on Wednesday appeared before the grand jury that must decide if there is enough evidence to go to trial.

She alleges that Strauss-Kahn groped and mauled her in his room in the posh Sofitel hotel in Times Square and forcibly tried to have oral sex with her.

Police have taken away a section of a rug from the luxury suite which reportedly contains evidence of bodily fluids hoping to gain DNA evidence from the scene.

But Strauss-Kahn's lawyer Benjamin Brafman has said the evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter," and New York media reports quoted a source close to the defense as saying "there may well have been consent."

Strauss-Kahn's resignation paves the way for the IMF to elect a new managing director as it steers delicate negotiations on the eurozone debt crisis.

Acting IMF chief John Lipsky said the Fund's executive board would meet later Thursday to launch the search for Strauss-Kahn's successor.

He said earlier in a speech that he deeply regrets "the circumstances that have made it necessary for me to substitute for Dominique Strauss-Kahn."

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde is the front-runner to succeed him and become the first woman to head the IMF, but emerging economic powers have called for an end to Europe's virtual monopoly on the world lender's top post.

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