A North Carolina judge has struck down a 98-year-old state ban on public profanity.

Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour dismissed a misdemeanor charge against Chapel Hill resident Samantha Elabanjo on Wednesday. She had been convicted in July of using the word "damn" during a confrontation with police officers.

Baddour ruled the law against indecent or profane language within earshot of two or more people on any public road in North Carolina was unconstitutionally vague.

The case started Feb. 15 when Elabanjo stepped into the road as a police cruiser drove by. The two officers asked her to get back on the sidewalk. She did, but said: "You need to clean up your damn, dirty car" while still in the road. She then called the officers a vulgar name and she was arrested.

Court documents released Wednesday say former chief technology officer Anthony Banas will plead guilty to wire fraud.

Chicago-based Canopy was known as one of the nation's fastest growing businesses before its 2009 bankruptcy. Many clients relied on it to pay medical bills.

Banas and former chief operating officer, Jeremy Blackburn, have been charged with wire fraud, which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence.

Banas' agreement says he participated in transferring $60 million of investor funds and misappropriating $18 million in health care savings accounts.

Messages left for defense attorneys weren't immediately returned.

Utah's Supreme Court has rejected a petition from members of a southern Utah-based polygamous sect seeking a reversal of changes made to its communal land trust.

In a ruling issued Friday, justices say members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints waited too long to challenge the state's intervention in the United Effort Plan Trust.

Valued at $110 million, the trust holds the property in Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz., the twin border towns where most church members live.

Utah seized the trust in 2005 after allegations of mismanagement by church leaders. A court-appointed accountant has since converted the trust into a secular entity.

FLDS members consider state control of the UEP a violation of their religious rights.

David Steeves of Center Moriches pleaded guilty in June to second-degree murder in the death of 41-year-old Maureen Steeves.

An autopsy found the woman was killed by potassium cyanide poisoning. Prosecutors say her husband had laced her coffee with the lethal substance.

Defense attorney Craig McElwee said the 45-year-old Steeves bought the cyanide to kill himself but "chickened out" and gave it to his wife instead.

Steeves pleaded guilty after prosecutors assured him that his sons would not be in court for the sentencing. The boys, ages 17 and 15, wrote letters to the judge, saying their father deserved no mercy.

A Delaware bankruptcy court judge on Friday cleared the way for auto parts supplier Visteon Corp. to begin soliciting votes on its proposed reorganization plan, which would leave unsecured bond holders in control of the company.

Overruling objections from certain shareholders and holders of unsecured trade claims, Judge Christopher Sontchi approved documents describing Visteon's proposed reorganization plan and the process for creditors to vote on it.

Creditors will have until July 30 to vote on the plan, and Sontchi scheduled a plan confirmation trial to begin Sept. 28.

The shareholders could receive nothing under Visteon's plan, and the trade creditors would get no more than 50 cents on the dollar for their claims, which total about $48 million. Their attorneys argued that the disclosure statement outlining Visteon's plan did not contain enough information on the company's valuation, and that the plan itself was unconfirmable because of how it treats various creditor groups.

Attorneys for Visteon argued that the objections to the disclosure statement were without merit, or that they should be addressed at what promises to be a contentious plan confirmation trial stretching over two weeks.

A former secretary for a Hudson Valley law firm has been sentenced to up to 13 years in prison for stealing nearly $700,000 from her employer over a seven-year span.
  
Mary Merten of New Paltz was sentenced Tuesday in Ulster County Court to 4 1/3 years to 13 years and also ordered to pay more than $600,000 to the Kingston law firm where she was employed as a confidential secretary.

The judge who sentenced the 44-year-old Merten noted that her thefts forced one of the victims out of retirement and looted a child's college savings.

She pleaded guilty earlier this year to embezzling from the law firm of Riseley and Moriello.

The $625,000 she was ordered to repay to her victims was the amount agreed to during a restitution hearing.