A judge gave Facebook access to the personal email accounts of a man suing for half ownership of the social networking website and ordered him to explain why he can't produce documents its lawyers believe are evidence.

Proof that Paul Ceglia's case is a fraud has been sitting on a Chicago law firm's email server since 2004, Facebook attorney Orin Snyder told the federal judge on Wednesday.

An email that Ceglia sent to a former business associate at the firm includes a scanned version of the two-page contract he and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg signed, Snyder said. Unlike the one Ceglia filed, it doesn't mention Facebook, only a street-mapping database Ceglia had hired Zuckerberg to work on, he said.

"The noose is tightening around the neck of this plaintiff, and he knows it," Snyder said during a four-hour procedural hearing that had each side accusing the other of dirty tricks.

Snyder said Ceglia had artificially aged his "phony" contract with light and chemicals, backdated computer files and transferred others to portable storage devices, which he'd likely tossed into Lake Erie.

Ceglia's attorney, Jeffrey Lake, countered that Facebook had tried to "poison the jury pool" by releasing what should have been confidential documents and implied Facebook had planted damning evidence on Ceglia's computers, a statement he backed away from after the hearing.

Attorney General Gary King and a state agency can take charge of legal efforts to recover money for New Mexico for some investment deals allegedly influenced by political considerations, a state court ruled Wednesday.

District Judge Stephen Pfeffer also dismissed portions of a whistleblower's lawsuit involving allegations of a pay-to-play scheme in investment deals by the State Investment Council, which oversees permanent funds worth more than $15 billion. The judge's ruling allows the council and the attorney general to handle those legal claims.

The lawsuit by Frank Foy, a former chief investment officer of the state's educational pension fund, will continue on other allegations, including that the state lost money on bad investments by the Educational Retirement Board and some by the council and that politics influenced some of the pension's fund investments.

The Investment Council filed a lawsuit in May claiming that its former top manager and a financial advisory firm improperly steered New Mexico investments to political supporters of former Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson. More than a dozen other defendants were named, including third-party placement agents who earned millions of dollars in fees on investment deals.

Former State Investment Officer Gary Bland has said the allegations are "absurd" and he was not involved in any wrongdoing.

More than 20,000 South Korean iPhone users have filed a class action lawsuit against US technology giant Apple for alleged privacy violations over the collection of location data, a law firm said.

The suit came after lawyer Kim Hyung-Suk was awarded one million won (US $950) in compensation in June, the first such payout by Apple's Korean unit, following an interim order by a court in the southeastern city of Changwon.

Kim has since led online preparations for a class action suit against Apple and its South Korean unit.

"The suit accuses Apple of breaching articles 10 and 17 of the constitution that ensure pursuit of happiness and protection of privacy, and the South Korean law on protection of location data," a spokesman for Kim's firm Miraelaw said. The suit involves 26,691 people demanding one million won each.

The longtime girlfriend of reputed Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger pleaded not guilty Thursday to helping him elude authorities during his 16 years as a fugitive.

Catherine Greig, 60, entered her plea in a brief appearance in federal court in Boston that lasted less than five minutes. She also waived a reading of the indictment.

Greig was indicted last week on a charge of conspiracy to harbor and conceal a fugitive, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years. Greig has been jailed since she and Bulger were captured in June in Santa Monica, Calif. Bulger has pleaded not guilty to participating in 19 murders.

Prosecutors say Greig actively helped Bulger escape capture, but her attorney says she's a subservient woman who wasn't aware of the extent of Bulger's alleged crimes when she fled with him.

On Thursday, Greig smiled at her twin sister when she entered the courtroom. She did not speak during the hearing, except to tell the judge she understood the charges against her and was ready to enter her plea.

After the hearing, Greig's attorney Kevin Reddington was asked if Greig was cooperating with authorities against Bulger.

A Nigerian man who fled to his homeland after being accused of defrauding dozens of lawyers and law firms of more than $31 million dollars has been extradited to the U.S., Nigeria’s anti-graft agency said Friday.

Emmanuel Ekhator was arrested in Nigeria’s Benin City by the country’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in August. He was handed over to U.S. marshals in New York on Thursday, said Femi Babafemi, the anti-graft body’s spokesman.

“With the latest extradition, ... the message should be clear to anyone who travels abroad to commit crime and run back home to hide that Nigeria is no longer safe for them,” Farida Waziri, the anti-graft body’s chief, said in a statement. “We will get them and hand them over to face the law.”

Court records show Ekhator has yet to be assigned a lawyer. He remained in custody on Friday.

Charging documents from the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania show that Ekhator and others are accused of mail and wire fraud after using bank accounts in South Korea, Singapore, China and Japan to collect the stolen money.

Federal prosecutors say the complicated scam involved multiple players, with a fraudster calling a U.S. or Canadian law firm posing as someone usually in Asia who needed to collect a debt from a person or organization based in North America. Another scammer poses as the debtor and agrees to pay off the debt — using a fake check, authorities say.

The law firms or lawyers collect the fake check, which gets validated by a third scammer posing as a bank employee over the telephone. Before the victims realize the check is fake, they’ve already used their own money to pay the fake settlement amount to their supposedly Asia-based client.

A court in Ukraine on Friday refused to consider an appeal to release former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from jail, where she has been kept for a week while her abuse-of-office trial proceeds.

Tymoshenko was jailed on Aug. 5 for violating court procedures at her trial, including refusing to rise when requested by the judge. She says her resistance is a protest of a trial she contends is politically motivated.

On Friday, the Kiev Appeal Court refused to hear an appeal, saying the country's criminal code does not allow appealing a preventive measure.

Tymoshenko attorney Yuriy Sukhov said that ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court.

Tymoshenko is charged in connection with a natural gas deal with Russia in 2009 that prosecutors claim was disadvantageous to Ukraine.

The United States and the European Union have condemned court cases against Tymoshenko and several of her top allies as selective prosecution of political opponents. Tymoshenko was a key figure in the 2004 Orange Revolution protests that forced annulment of a presidential election purportedly won by Viktor Yanukovych.