"I feel very terrible about the activities that went on," Courtney told Judge William Dimitrouleas as he entered the guilty plea for conspiring to possess a load of heroin with intent to distribute.

On Wednesday, Thomas Simcox pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy charge. The officers' punishment could range from 10 years to life in prison, with the possibility of a reduced sentence for cooperating with the government.

Two other officers pleaded guilty last month.

No other police officers are expected to be charged, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the case.

But there is still an ongoing probe into who leaked information about the FBI sting, forcing federal agents to abort the investigation before they were able to make further arrests.

Simcox pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess a load of heroin with intent to distribute. An extortion-conspiracy charge was dropped as part of the plea deal with the officers.

All four officers cut a similar deal.

They were all accused of providing security in an FBI sting in which undercover agents posed as organized crime figures during a series of stings -- from illegal gambling to transporting narcotics.

All four have pleaded guilty to the one conspiracy count of providing protection to move more than one kilo of heroin from Miami Beach to Oakwood Plaza in Hollywood for what the officers believed were mob-connected drug dealers.

The plea comes nearly three months after Simcox and the three other officers -- Kevin Companion, Stephen Harrison and Courtney -- were arrested by federal agents.

Simcox will be sentenced July 18 and Courtney will be sentenced on July 27.

Originally, Simcox was the only one of the four cooperating with authorities. He is alleged to have worn a concealed recording device for nearly a month.

Simcox's attorney, Bruce Udolf, would not comment on the extent of his client's cooperation with authorities.

Simcox agreed to surrender his law enforcement certificate and repay the FBI $16,000. Courtney must also surrender his certificate and repay the FBI $22,000.

Officials said Simcox received $8,000 in cash for protecting the load of heroin, and a total of $16,000 during his involvement in the illegal activities.

The FBI sting, dubbed Operation Tarnished Badge, was part of a two-year probe in which the officers were accused of providing protection for what they thought were illegal gambling and drug-dealing operations.

The four were charged with conspiring to possess with intent to distribute a multi-kilo load of heroin between October and November 2006.

A former teacher charged with having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student and running off to Mexico with him pleaded guilty Wednesday to a sodomy charge.

Angela Renee Comer, 28, would serve 10 years in prison under her plea agreement, in which the prosecutor agreed to drop most other charges. Besides one count of third-degree sodomy, Comer pleaded guilty to one count of custodial interference.

She had faced up to 20 years on each of four counts of first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor and up to five years each for two counts of third-degree sodomy.

Comer said in an interview with The Associated Press after the court hearing that she was glad to avoid a trial, which had been scheduled to start today.

"A trial is very stressful for everyone, and I just want this to be over," she said.

Comer entered the courtroom wearing jeans and an orange jail T-shirt and answered a series of questions from the judge before entering the plea.

Police said Comer had a sexual affair with the boy, who is now 16, and took him without his guardian's permission. Authorities found Comer, her young son and the teen in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, on Jan. 10, 2006.

The boy's grandmother watched as Comer entered the plea. The boy, who was not in court Wednesday, was removed from her care after the incident and placed in a foster home, she said.

"I'm relieved that it's over. This has been going on for 16 months and I don't think anyone should have to wait that length of time. It's been very difficult for me," the grandmother said.

The Associated Press is not using the grandmother's name to protect the identity of the boy. It is the policy of the AP not to identify victims of sex crimes in most cases.

The grandmother said the boy is a high school sophomore now. He's embarrassed by the incident and has had little contact with his family since he was moved into foster care, she said.

"He doesn't want to come back here, because he says they'll judge him," she said.

Comer said she expects to be eligible for parole after serving 24 months of the sentence. She said she also will be required to complete a sex offender treatment program that takes from 12 to 18 months. Comer has been in jail for the 16 months since her arrest.

Comer also said since her arrest her ex-husband has not permitted her to see her 5-year-old son, who is autistic.

Prosecutor Jesse Stockton declined to comment, pending Comer's formal sentencing, scheduled for June 20.

Giba, said to be in his 40s, is alleged to be the man recorded on a business surveillance system walking around partially clothed.  KRQE News 13 broadcast photos from the business, first with the face obscured at the request of police, and then today with his face visible.

Police said they received several calls about the identity of the man in the photos.

Giba works in a law firm in Santa Fe, possibly as a receptionist, and that's where he was arrested late this morning.  At this point he has not been charged with any of the seven attacks on women.

“We are not prepared to call him a suspect at this point,” Capt. Gary Johnson of the Santa Fe Police Department said.  “However he is a strong person of interest, and we are going to compare him to these other assaults and see if we develop any other information."

Police are hoping to compare Giba’s DNA with DNA collected at crime scenes.

In addition Johnson said Giba is believed to be a registered sex offender in Oregon although requirements in Oregon don't meet guidelines for registration in New Mexico.

A Portsmouth law firm and a Portsmouth contracting firm are tangled in Supreme Court litigation after serving as each other's unhappy customers two years ago.

The high court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a Consumer Protection Act claim by the Becksted Associates construction firm against the Nadeau law firm for using alleged deceptive and coercive business practices against them.

That's just one of several lawsuits between the two companies in the past year.

Attorney J.P. Nadeau and his son, Justin Nadeau, an attorney and former Democratic Congressional candidate, won a directed verdict for the firm in Rockingham County Superior Court in 2006 dismissing the consumer protection charge. The Becksteds appealed to the Supreme Court.

Both sides agree William Becksted Sr. and his son, William Becksted Jr., were renovating the second floor of the Nadeau law firm into an apartment for Justin Nadeau. The Nadeau court brief says the Becksteds were still billing Justin for more than $39,000 after he had paid $166,000 for a project he had understood would cost no more than $100,000, and later would cost no more than $154,000.

Nadeau refused to pay the balance because he was disappointed with the cost overruns and the work he was getting. According to both sides, he sent the contractors a letter March 4, 2005, on law firm letterhead threatening litigation unless they stopped dunning him. The Becksteds hired a different lawyer and sued the Nadeau firm on March 28.

Amid these mounting tensions, J.P. Nadeau was still representing the Becksteds in two unrelated legal cases on behalf of the construction firm. The elder Nadeau had sent his client no bills between the summer of 2004 and that December. In January 2005 he finally gave them an invoice for $12,001.50. It had obvious arithmetic errors, which Becksted Sr. picked up on. The total should been around $5,000, based on the hours and hourly rate.

Becksted asked the New Hampshire Bar Association for help resolving the billing issue. The elder Nadeau found out about it, rechecked his time log, changed the billable hours slightly, and sent a corrected bill for $5,335. He soon sent a bill for another $3,234 in legal fees for the second case he was working on. Eventually the combined legal bill reached $15,000.

Attorney Philip Pettis argued the Consumer Protection case for the Becksteds. He told the high court it was improper for the Nadeau firm to keep representing them as lawyers. Pettis also noted the legal bills arrived only after the contracting dispute had flared up.

Justice Richard Galway asked why this case is any different from the average contract dispute. Pettis said the lawyers were using their position of relative power as unfair leverage. It's hard to change lawyers in the middle of litigation. He also called the incorrect billing "inflated and deceptive."

Chief Justice John Broderick said a billing error is a foolish way to intimidate someone.

"Why would you do that if you weren't innocent?" he asked.

Pettis agreed that might not have been the best tactic.

Broderick grilled attorney Anna Barbara Hantz, the lawyer for the Nadeaus, the same way.

"You're working on my house," Broderick said. "I'm representing you in a legal case. I'm trying to use the bills you owe me to get you to drop claims against me over my house. We now have a personal dispute that's not going away. Does that bother you?"

Hantz said it certainly would.

"But the Consumer Protection Act doesn't have a different standard for lawyers," she added.

The Stamford, Connecticut-based company and three executives admitted that they falsely claimed OxyContin was less addictive, less subject to abuse, and less likely to cause withdrawal symptoms than rival pain medications.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not approved those claims.

"Purdue (Frederick) put its desire to sell OxyContin above the interests of the public," Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler said in a statement. "Purdue abused the drug approval process which relies on drug manufacturers to be forthright in reporting clinical data and, instead, misled physicians about the addiction and withdrawal issues involved with OxyContin."

OxyContin, prescribed for patients with moderate to severe pain, is now regulated as a controlled substance with the same addictive potential as morphine.

Of the $634.5 million settlement, $276 million will be forfeited to the United States, $160 million allocated to federal and state government agencies to resolve false claims for government healthcare programs and $130 million will go to resolving private civil claims.

Additional amounts will be paid to the Virginia Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Virginia Prescription Monitoring program.

The guilty pleas follow a $19.5 million settlement the related manufacturer of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma LP, made with 26 states and the District of Columbia this week over allegations it failed to adequately disclose abuse risks posed by the powerful narcotic.

Purdue Pharma had also settled a civil case brought by its insurer in June for $200 million.

Graves is now the ninth known US Attorney to be fired last year for alleged political reasons. On Monday, the US Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to former US Attorney Bradley Schlozman to answer questions about a possible link between the firing scandal and voter fraud prosecutions. Also Monday, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said that it would not try to block a House decision to grant immunity to former DOJ official Monica Goodling in exchange for her testimony about whether politics played a role in the dismissal of eight US Attorneys. Goodling told the committee in March that she would not speak to the committee about her role in the firings.