Robert Stein, the former comptroller and funding officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, was sentenced to 9 years in prison after pleading guilty to bribery and money laundering charges.

He admitted conspiring with Philip H. Bloom, a U.S. citizen with businesses in Romania, Bruce D. Hopfengardner, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, and others including several high-ranking Army officers. Bloom, who controlled companies in Iraq and Romania, bid on projects using dummy corporations and Stein ensured that one of the firms was awarded the contract, according to court documents. ...

The businessman allegedly showered Hopfengardner and Stein with luxury gifts such as cash, premium airline seats, jewelry and sexual favors from women at his Baghdad villa.

Bloom and Hopfengardner await sentencing.

Michael Nifong is having a bad month.

The North Carolina State Bar filed a second, more serious round of ethics charges yesterday against the district attorney in Durham, N.C., accusing him of “systematic abuse of prosecutorial discretion” in the sexual assault case against three former members of the Duke University lacrosse team. ...

Much of the new ethics complaint focuses on Mr. Nifong’s handling of private DNA testing and his remarks to a judge and bar officials about it. Those tests were arranged by Mr. Nifong after a state laboratory found no semen, blood or saliva from lacrosse players on or in the woman or on her clothes. Using a more sophisticated test, the private laboratory found DNA from multiple men on the woman and her underwear, but none from any of the lacrosse players.

Mr. Nifong and the lab director decided to tell defense lawyers only about the positive matches, including a link to the woman’s boyfriend, in a summary report of the DNA work, said the bar, a state agency that regulates lawyers in North Carolina. The negative findings, which the bar said “tended to negate the guilt of the accused,” were included only in laboratory reports not given to defense lawyers for more than six months.

Substitute teacher Julie Amero tells it this way:

A few students were crowded around a PC; some were giggling. She investigated and saw the kids looking at a barrage of graphic, hard-core pornographic pop-ups.

Amero was nonetheless "convicted of impairing the morals of a child and risking injury to a minor by exposing as many as ten seventh-grade students to porn sites." According to the prosecution, Amero accessed the porn sites deliberately. Amero contends that she was the unwitting victim of malware.

The school district (which may have an incentive to throw Amero overboard to avoid broader blame) assures the parents of Norwich that its filtering software is usually impenetrable, at least now that they've paid the bill to keep it updated. A suspicious mind might wonder whether there's a connection between a fellow teacher's support for Amero and her firing for insubordination.

Amero rejected an offer of probation, believing a jury would understand her innocence. Although she faces 40 years, probation is a sufficient sanction given the impact the conviction is likely to have on her career. Amero will be sentenced in March.

The DNA expert in the Duke Lacrosse case will be on "60 Minutes" tonight admitting to "big errors" in the case.

The forensic expert hired by the prosecutor in the Duke rape case says he made a "big error" in judgment by not stating in his report that the only DNA he found on the accuser was from several men who were not on the Duke lacrosse team.

....Meehan acknowledged that he has never omitted potentially exculpatory evidence before. "We haven't done that before," he tells Stahl. "In retrospect, I should have done a better job of conveying that information."

Always good to hear a mea culpa. Now, if we could only get one from D.A. Mike Nifong.

The full transcript is here.

There are 1,800 articles about the missing boys found in Kirkwood, Missouri. All three cable news networks are giving the story Runaway Bride-type coverage. I've tried avoiding it, but it's almost impossible. Here's the latest.

It makes no sense, particularly the story about Shawn Hornbeck, the now-15 year old. I'm tired of the experts' pat explanations: Stockholm syndrome, fear his family members would be killed, etc. The interview with the cops who found the pick-up truck was non-informational.

The man arrested, Michael Devlin, held the same job at the same pizza joint in Kirkwood, Mo., (population 25,000) where he lived and near where he grew up and where numerous family members still reside, for 25 years. The pizza owner says he was shocked to learn he had a kid. Did Devlin's family not know he had a kid? He never married. What about Christmas and holidays -- did Devlin just go alone? Did his brothers never visit his apartment and see signs of a kid living there? Or, did he introduce the family to the kid, passing the kid off as his own with an improbable story?

In the neighborhood, parents and kids say the kid was just like every other kid, had sleepovers, was allowed to go out to play,etc.

Update: The State Attorney General, Roy Cooper, announced Saturday his office will take the case from Nifong.

Mike Nifong, the prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse player's alleged sexual assault case has asked to be removed and for the appointment of a special prosecutor.

Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the attorney general, said Friday in an e-mail that District Attorney Mike Nifong sent a letter requesting the special prosecutor.

As to what this means for the case, I'd say delay, a long one.

A hearing on the defense motion to suppress the accuser's identification of the players is scheduled for February 5. The state attorney general must now appoint a special prosecutor who will need a substantial amount of time to familiarize himself or herself with the case.

For your Friday entertainment, you may want to read the police reports and documents (linked at Brad Blog) outlining the three crimes (two of them felonies) that might be charged against Ann Coulter, who misrepresented her address when she applied for a driver's license, when she registered to vote, and again when she voted.

There's lots of news in the Duke lacrosse player's alleged sexual assault case, which continues to crumble at an astonishing rate.

• The accuser told yet another version on Dec. 21. The statement was turned over to the Defense on Jan. 4. In it, she says Reade Seligman was not one of those who sexually assaulted her. DA Mike Nifong knew this before he dropped the rape charges, yet didn't drop charges against Seligman. And that's just the beginning of the new inconsistencies. You can read the original suppression motion here and yesterday's supplement here.

• "60 Minutes" will do a follow-up story on the case Sunday night (Jan. 14).

The accuser in the Duke lacrosse players' alleged sexual assault case has given birth, a month early, by cesarian section.

Will she be ready to testify at the Feb. 5 eyewitness identification hearing?

I think she should be.

The options? She will ask Nifong to drop the case saying she doesn't want to pursue the case or Nifong will ask for a continuance on medical grounds or the hearing will proceed.

Any bets?

Blogger Betsy Newmark has an op-ed on the racial aspects of the case and Nifong's conduct in today's Washington Examiner.

Update: 1/4, 7:13 am MT: Denver's KOA radio reports police have found the car in the Green Valley section of Denver. It was painted over but not burned. It's on its way to the police evidence department.

Denver police have identified a "vehicle of interest" in the New Years' Eve shooting death of Denver Bronco cornerback Darrent Williams. (background here.)

Police put out a bulletin earlier today looking for a White 1994 Chevy Tahoe with Colorado license plate number 665-OBS. They didn't identify the owner, but the local news has: Brian Hicks.

It may or may not be the vehicle involved in the shooting, but if it was, Hicks couldn't have been the shooter because he's in jail awaiting trial on drug charges -- and on charges of shooting a woman who was supposed to testify against him at trial. The woman was later killed the week before his trial was supposed to begin.

Hicks has been jailed since Nov. 9 on a charge of possessing drugs with intent to distribute. He's also accused of shooting at a woman who was later killed a week before she was to testify against him. His bond was increased to $1 million after the woman was killed and his trial date was rescheduled.

Duke University has asked Reade Seligman and Collin Finnerty, charged with sexual assault, to return to Duke.

This is a stunning turnaround, since they are still charged with felonies. From Duke's letter to the boys and its public statement:

As circumstances have evolved in this extraordinary case, we have attempted to balance recognition of the gravity of legal charges with the presumption of your innocence," Duke officials wrote to the Seligmann family in a letter obtained by ABC News Law & Justice Unit.

"Now with the approach of a new term, we believe that circumstances warrant that we strike this balance differently. At this point, continued extension of the administrative leave would do unwarranted harm to your educational progress. We decided…to lift the administrative leave," the letter states.

Denver Bronco cornerback Darrent Williams was gunned down at 2:00 a.m. last night in a drive-by shooting at 10th/11th Ave. and Speer Blvd. in Denver.

The Fort Worth, Texas native, according to team officials, was shot in what police had informed the team was a drive-by shooting. Williams was in a Humvee limousine with several others when it was hit with several bullets fired from another vehicle shortly after 2 a.m. Monday morning. Williams was one of three people in the limousine who were shot. All three, including Williams, were taken to hospitals.

The execution-style murder may have resulted from an altercation at a nightclub earlier in the evening. Another Bronco player may have been in the vehicle. As of this writing, no one has been arrested but suspects have been identified.