Mary Ellen Wilson, a former office manager at Gentle Family Dentistry in New Berlin, was sentenced to 3 years in prison for stealing over $350,000 from the dental practice. Her [tag]prison[/tag] term will be followed by 5 years on extended supervision and 20 years of probation.

Wilson, 56, pleaded guilty to 5 counts of theft for stealing the money from her employer over a period of 5 years. Police were contacted by the clinic on April 19, 2005 with a report that a significant embezzlement had occurred, and the perpetrator had confessed that morning. The clinic operator was suspicious when the IRS contacted the dental practice to inquire about unpaid payroll taxes since 2000.

The theft scheme involved Wilson cutting checks to herself rather than making tax payments. In addition, she stole cash from the dental office. Wilson used the money for gambling, travel, clothing, and home furnishings. She said at the sentencing hearing that she was truly sorry and :

“My stealing from Gentle Family Dentistry has touched many lives. I have disgraced myself and embarrassed my family. I should have thought about all of this before I started stealing.”

CBS Corp. filed an appeal of the Federal Communications Commision’s (FCC) fine against 20 CFS stations for the airing of the flashing of Janet Jackson’s breat during the 2004 Super Bowl. Each station has been fined $27,500, and the total is therefore $550,000.

The FCC has been assessing larger fines for indecency. The largest came in March 2006, which the CBS show “Without a Trace” was fine $3.6 million. CBS says it has taken steps to ensure that something like this will not happen again.

Spivak & Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel break an interesting (but sad) story about Milwaukee’s inept District Attorney’s Office.

On July 22, Sidney Gray alleged burglarized a home and killed Frank Moore II, a neighbor who was trying to stop the burglary. Gray has seven convictions on his record.

As it turns out, Gray probably should have been in jail for stealing a car, resisting arrest and attempting to burglarizing a woman’s home on July 16. So who bungled the case? The District Attorney’s office says that they told the police to bring this woman go to the DA’s office to tell them her story. They say the police never brought her.

The police say Gray should have at least been charged with resisting arrest while the case was being investigated. A detective’s report on the burglary of the woman’s home is dated July 27, which is 5 days after Moore was murdered.

The woman says she was never told to come downtown, and that she was very willing to help out. She wants to know why Gray was released without anyone talking to her. The whole situation is crazy, including the apparent reluctance of the police to act quickly on the night of the attempted burglary. Read the whole story for the details.

The first case against a [tag]NSYE specialist firm[/tag] trader was aqutted of charges that he made improper trades of Eli Lilly stock. The case against Robert Scavone Jr. ended with a finding of [tag]not guilty[/tag] for one count of secruities fraud. He faced up to 20 years in prison.

The accusations against Scavone, a former trader for Van der Moolen Specialists USA LLC, included illegally trading for the firm’s account ahead of public orders. It was alleged that the firm made profits (and avoided losses) to the tune of $500,000 because of this. The defense was that the trades weren’t intentional crimes, rather that they were mistakes as well as misinterpreted.

11 more traders are expected to go to trial with their cases. 2 other traders have been found guilty in trials, and 2 more pleaded guilty.

A federal court has posted online 1,202 exhibits from the Zacarias Moussaoui trial. The exhibits include photographs, recorded phone calls, hijacker motel receipts, and surveillance videotapes of the hijackers passing through airport security from September 11, 2001.

18 of the exhibits were marked “discretion advised” because of the graphic content.

Two former outside directors and the former CEO of Brooks Automation Inc. signed a document that allowed the CEO to exercise an [tag]expired stock option[/tag], which netted him millions of dollars. The option was to expire in August 1999, and CEO Robert Therrien supposedly exercised it only two days before the deadline.

Company officials now say that the transaction actually occurred months later, and was permitted because the three men signed a document as if it happened in June. The document referenced a loan given to Thierren in August 1999, which supposedly was discussed by the men in June 1999. Brooks Automation has since found that no such discussions occurred in June, and Therrien exercised the options in November 1999 for a profit of $5.8 million.

The company recently restated some earnings to account for problems with their its accounting for stock options. A total of $60 million in expense was added to the company’s [tag]financial statements[/tag] for 1999 through 2005.

The full story from the Wall Street Journal can be read here.