A second Florida man accused of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 600 Haitian-American investors of millions of dollars has pleaded guilty. Abner Alabre of Miramar pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit securities fraud. He also forfeited his home, which authorities say was bought with money raised in the scheme. The 33-year-old man faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled. Brian Taglieri also pleaded guilty last month in connection with the scheme and agreed to reimburse investors. Authorities say the four men bilked investors of more than $12 million in ... Read Full Story

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A jailed New York hedge fund manager whose fraud was revealed in the wake of the Madoff scandal, pleaded guilty in court on Friday to charges of bilking investors of an estimated $150 million. James Nicholson, 43, founder of Westgate Capital Management LLC, was arrested and criminally charged on February 25, when U.S. prosecutors said the scheme was partly exposed by requests for redemptions after the December 2008 disclosure of financier Bernard Madoff's multibillion dollar investment fraud. Prosecutors are seeking at least $150 million in forfeiture from Nicholson, the amount he is said to have defrauded from investors from 2004 ... Read Full Story

A State Department filing clerk pleaded guilty Friday to illegally viewing passport files of celebrities, the ninth current or former employee of the agency to admit to snooping. Debra Sue Brown, 47, of Oxon Hill, Md., pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola to one count of illegally accessing the files. Brown is scheduled to be sentenced March 23. Brown has worked full-time for the State Department since September 1995 as a file clerk and a file assistant in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, according to court documents. Brown admitted that between Mar. 25, 2005, and Feb. 7, 2008, she repeatedly searched ... Read Full Story

Authorities say four Arizona men and a Texas resident have been indicted in a $160 million Ponzi scheme. A 40-count federal indictment unsealed Thursday charges most of the men with mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Charged in the case are 38-year-old Guy Andrew Williams of Mesa, 62-year-old Brent F. Williams of Mesa; 46-year-old Douglas Edward Towler of Scottsdale, 43-year-old Russell Laurence Sewell of Mesa and 38-year-old Duane Hamblin Slade of Austin, Texas. The indictment alleges that between February 2002 and April 2005, the defendants induced victims to invest millions of dollars in a fund designed to make loans to third-party borrowers at ... Read Full Story

BOSTON (Reuters) - A major U.S. hacker agreed to plead guilty to federal charges linked to electronic break-ins at 7-Eleven Inc and a chain of New England grocery stores, a court filing shows. The plea by Albert Gonzalez could wrap up a large federal effort against what prosecutors have painted as the biggest data breach ring caught to date. The ring has been accused of stealing payment card data from millions of customers of merchants, including TJX Cos Inc and BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. Government prosecutors have described Gonzalez, of Miami, as the ringleader of a gang responsible for the attacks. Gonzalez's attorney denied ... Read Full Story