A former corporate executive officer of a New York-based automotive-chemical company was convicted Tuesday in a multimillion-dollar investor fraud scheme that enabled him to buy expensive jewelry and take private jets.

A jury in Manhattan state Supreme Court found Cleveland lawyer James Margulies guilty of charges including grand larceny and scheme to defraud. He faces up to 25 years on the top two counts, which could run consecutively. Bail was set at $1.5 million.

Ira London, an attorney for Margulies, said he planned to file "a very vigorous appeal."

"The jury has spoken. I believe they have convicted an innocent man," he said.

While serving as the company's finance chief — and briefly as CEO — of Industrial Enterprises of America, Inc., from 2004 to 2008, Margulies illegally issued millions of shares of stock to friends and relatives, inflating the share price by making the company look more profitable than it was, prosecutors said.

A teachers' pension fund in Ohio and a church were among the victims of the scheme, prosecutors said.

Margulies personally reaped more than $7 million, spending it on lavish luxuries such as a $350,000 diamond ring for his wife from jeweler Harry Winston, prosecutors said.

He also paid more than a million dollars on the mortgage of his first home, bought a second home and spent $500,000 on a vacation club membership, prosecutors said.

Margulies was charged in the scheme in 2010 along with John D. Mazzuto, who pleaded guilty Jan. 14 to his role in issuing fraudulent shares of stock.

Authorities say a South Florida paralegal stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from her Fort Lauderdale law firm.

Miami-Dade officials on Tuesday charged 53-year-old Brenda Wilcott-Kelly with more than 80 felonies, including grand theft and forging documents. Records show she's also took money from a lawyer who was on his deathbed.

Employees of Hermelee & Geffin were in court Tuesday as Judge Dennis Murphy set Wilcott-Kelly's bond at $116,000.

Defense attorney Morgan Cronin said his client is innocent.

According to the arrest affidavit, Wilcott-Kelly took $82,472 from the firm to pay off her husband's credit cards. She is also accused of stealing $31,050 from lawyer Steven A. Schultz, while he was in the hospital. Schultz leased space from the firm.

A conservative group fighting campaign finance rules in Montana says in a recent filing that it agrees disclosure laws can apply to corporate speech, but Western Tradition Partnership argues it isn't subject to current disclosure laws because its attack mailers fall outside the definition of "electioneering."

The Montana Supreme Court has set oral arguments for September in the state's challenge to a district court decision that tossed out the outright ban on corporate political spending.

Western Tradition Partnership first filed the lawsuit last year piggybacking on the high-profile Citizen's United case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The group aims to undo Montana's century-old restriction on corporate political spending.

Western Tradition is separately fighting a decision that it failed to report campaign expenditures. The group argues its activities are not intended to influence elections.

In a brief filed earlier this month with the Supreme Court on the main case fighting the ban corporate campaign spending, WTP made it clear it believes campaign finance regulation is OK.

"If the State is truly concerned with accountability, the state has other means at its disposal, such as disclosure laws, to make sure that people know who is speaking," Western Tradition argued in the brief. "It is inappropriate, and indeed, unconstitutional, to completely outlaw corporate political speech."

An Ohio appeals court has ruled in favor of former Cleveland Browns center LeCharles Bentley, saying the team can't force NFL arbitration to halt a lawsuit on the career-ending staph infection he says he contracted at the team's training facility.

The Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals in Cleveland on Thursday upheld a Cuyahoga County judge's ruling, saying the issue is not related to the collective bargaining agreement and can be handled in county court.

Bentley's attorney has said he nearly died from the infection he contracted while rehabbing from a knee injury at the team's suburban Berea facility. The team is accused of persuading Bentley to rehab at the training site and failing to tell him about unsanitary conditions and other players who had contracted staph.

The team had argued that state and federal laws support arbitration over litigation.

Bentley never played a game for the Browns after signing a six-year, $36 million contract as a free agent. He tore his left patellar tendon in training camp in 2006, and his career never recovered after the infection.

The former office manager of a northern New Jersey law firm has been sentenced to seven years in prison for stealing more than $400,000 from her employers.

The firm's owners say the thefts Beth Friedland committed between 2003 and January 2010 caused serious financial problems and forced them to lay off staff and associates. The Roxbury Township resident pleaded guilty in March to theft by unlawful taking, admitting she stole $448,721 from the Chatham-based firm of Maloof, Lebowitz, Connahan &Oleske.

The firm, though, claims Friedland took $1.1 million overall and has sued her to regain those funds.

Friedland must serve about 17 months of the sentence imposed Friday before becoming eligible for parole. Her husband, Alex Cruz, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy, was sentenced Friday to three years probation.

A former lawyer intrigued by the global demand for energy says he chose to invest $100,000 in oil giant Chevron Corp. back in 2004, a smart stock bet that now would have doubled seven years later.

But Perry Christy has a big problem: He says Chevron's stock agent never deducted money from his bank account. As a result, he has no records to show he actually owns a certain number of shares.

So Christy, 69, is suing Chevron and Mellon Investor Services and seeking an extraordinary remedy. He wants a federal judge to declare that he should be credited with buying the stock at a June 2004 price, plus any additional shares that would have piled up by reinvesting dividends. Then he'll pay $100,000.

Based on the terrific rise in San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron's stock, it would be like winning the lottery—and then buying a ticket.

"There was some kind of mix-up on the day I placed the order," Christy insisted in an interview at his home in the Detroit suburb of Northville. "Whether mechanical or electronic, I don't think we'll ever know. But it's their screw-up. When you deal with any large bureaucracy, people are focused on their own narrow niche."

After more than a year in court, Chevron and Mellon smell a scam and want the case dismissed, even suggesting that Christy's story of a genuine yet botched investment simply is a lie.