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Prosecutors estimate that from 2000 to 2013 Beale was absent from his EPA duties for a total of 2.5 years, claiming to be working for "Langley" or on a special EPA "research project." In 2008 he was gone for six months but never submitted a leave request. Around May 2011, Beale claimed to be retiring and celebrated with colleagues on a dinner cruise. An EPA manager admitted to not seeing Beale at the office after that, though not noticing until November 2012 that Beale was still on the payroll...

OAKLAND -- A former intern in Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums' office has pleaded no contest to credit-card theft after being accused of stealing bank account information from two mayoral staff members and a law firm where she previously worked, her attorney said Friday. Phelicia Williams, 27, of Oakland entered her plea this week in Alameda County Superior Court, where she had been scheduled for a preliminary hearing. She will be sentenced Aug. 20 by Judge Morris Jacobson. In exchange for her plea and her promise to pay $15,000 to the victims, prosecutors dropped five other felony counts, defense attorney Robert...

A Hollywood producer has agreed to plead guilty to income tax evasion and conspiracy to commit mail fraud in connection with an alleged scam that bilked millions of dollars from people who thought they were investing in a television series about the Department of Homeland Security, according to a report published Tuesday. Joseph Medawar, 44, faces up to 10 years in prison and $9 million in fines under the plea agreement, which is set to come before a federal judge on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing federal court documents filed Monday. He also would pay $3.4 million in...

FAIRFIELD, Calif. (AP) - A City Council candidate, who owned a discount travel agency, was arrested on charges of bilking $50,000 from customers - a day before voters were to decide his political fate. Iqbal "Paul" Randhawa, 52, was arrested at his Fairfield home Monday, along with his wife, Gurdev "Debbie" Randhawa, and their son Manjinder "Manny" Randhawa. The family operates M&K Travel Services Inc. in San Francisco, Fairfield and San Jose. Prosecutors said the Randhawas and their employees sold more than $50,000 in airline tickets, mostly for travel to India, that were never delivered between May 2004 and June...

Texas Monthly November 2001 What happens when a top law firm gets two crooks for clients? At Locke, Liddell, and Sapp, the result was a $30 million settlement for angry investors. by John Spong LOCKE PURNELL ATTORNEY JANE MATHESON'S NOTE ON THE BACK OF A TRADE AGREEMENT her firm was editing for client Russell Erxleben in February 1998 got right to the point: "Tell the truth." Erxleben, an All-American punter and place kicker for the University of Texas Longhorns in the seventies, had enlisted the 110-year-old, blue-chip Dallas law firm to keep his company, Austin Forex Investments (AFI), from running...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man who bilked companies out of tens of millions of dollars in equipment by pretending he was recruiting business for a secret NATO project was sentenced to 80 months in prison. Errol Anthony Marsden, listed in court papers as Jourdan Mars, had pleaded guilty in March to a count of wire fraud in a plea agreement with prosecutors. He said at his sentencing Friday that his actions were unacceptable. "At the time, I was not a rational person," the British national said. "For the first time in my life, I see the consequences," One of...