Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson's former personal physician, was charged with one felony count of involuntary manslaughter in Los Angeles criminal court today for the pop star's death.

You can read Murray's criminal charges here:

Disbarred Fort Lauderdale, Fla. lawyer Scott Rothstein pleaded guilty to felony Ponzi scheme charges today, admitting that for approximately five years, he engaged in approximately $1.2 billion dollars of fraudulent and bogus investment schemes.

According to the plea agreement (you can read it below), Rothstein admitted that he engaged in a criminal racketeering scheme to use his position as a lawyer and law firm Rothstein Roenfeldt and Adler, P.A.'s ('RRA') purported success "and his standing in the community to lure potential investors in order to convince them to" invest in non-existent sexual harassment and whistleblower cases.  He falsely told investors that "confidential settlement agreements" could be bought pre-litigation, i.e, before any lawsuit was ever filed.

In reality, no such clients or pre-litigation cases ever existed. 

Former child actor Gary Coleman was arrested in Utah on warrant for a failure to appear, but not on domestic violence charges after Santaquin police responded to a dispute at the home of Coleman and his wife.

He may be all grown up now, but this is not the first time that Coleman or his much younger wife have faced legal trouble.

In a domestic dispute last July, Coleman's wife Shannon Price was charged with disordely conduct and suspicion of domestic violence after the couple became embroiled in a heated dispute.

Alfonso Portillo, the former President of Guatemala, was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on charges that he embezzled $1.5 million that was donated to buy books for Guatemalan school libraries, approximately $3.9 earmarked for the country's Ministry of Defense, and took other money from the public financed reserves of a Guatemalan national bank.

According to Portillo's indictment, none of the $1.5 in money given by Taiwan's government to purchase books for the countries  'Libraries for Peace' program wound up in Guatemalaan school libraries.  Instead, the money allegedly ended up in the French bank accounts of Portillo's former wife and daughter, and was laundered even further through Luxembourg and Swiss bank accounts.

Where is where is the former Guatemalan leader right now?

A Toledo Municipal Court judge ruled that the Ohio city's law concerning pit bulls is unconstitutional because it conflicts with the state's law and is vague.

Judge Michael Goulding was faced with many legal challenges  by dog owner Hugh Smith after the city charged him with 13 alleged violations of Toledo's breed-specific pit bull ordinance.

For example, Smith said -- and the court agreed -- that his pooches are Cane Corsos, not pit bulls.

In three hours of testimony today before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence lamented the fact that authorities gave Miranda warnings to accused Northwest Flight 253 terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (inset, right), without first consulting with his office and Homeland Security officials.

According to Blair, an elite high-value interrogation group (known as the 'HIG') comprised of CIA, FBI, and other federal agency employees, should have been been used to try and obtain actionable intelligence before MIrandizing Abdulmutallab. "We did not invoke the HIG in this case," Blair testified. "We should have. Frankly, we were thinking more of overseas people. And, duh...the decision was made on the scene."

Suspended Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas pled guilty to one felony criminal charge in Washington, D.C. today (read the plea agreement below) for carrying a pistol without a license. The plea followed his gun charges yesterday elated to a December 21, 2009 dispute that he and teammate Javaris Crittenton in the Wizards' locker room over a gambling debt.

According to prosecutors, the argument stemmed from mutual threats that Arenas and Crittenton had to shoot one another. The threats occured after a card game aboard a charted flight that the Wizards took from Phoenix Arizona back home to the Washington, D.C. area.

After nearly six years of criminal trials in two federal cases, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced that the Justice Department was requesting the court to sign a nolle prosequi order (see below) formalizing a decision not to prosecute John A. Gotti a/k/a 'Junior Gotti' any more on federal racketeering and murder conspiracy charges involving alleged drug trafficking and loansharking activities. 

The latest case was originally filed in Florida, but subsequently transferred to New York.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York prosecuted Junior Gotti in four successive trials in these two cases over the last six years.  The first case in 2004 charged charged him with criminal conspiracy involving a plot to kidnap Guardian Angels founder and radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa. That case also involved allegations of securities fraud, and loansharking.

A federal grand jury returned a criminal indictment against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian citizen arrested for attempting to detonate and explosive device on Christmas Day while on a Northwest Airlines Flight 253 flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Abudlmutallab unsuccessfully attempted to detonated a bomb containing pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) that was attached to his body before the plane landed at Detroit Metropolitan airport, but was apprehended and subdued by passengers and crew.

A 24-year-old McDonald's patron had a not-so-happy meal of legal trouble after she punched out the fast food joint's drive-thru window at a Toledo, Ohio location, attacking the glass at the The Glass City restaurant.

Maybe Melodi Dushane was still recovering from a late night of New Years Eve frolicking.  Perhaps she just got off to a bad New Year's morning. 

But one thing is for sure: punching out a drive-thru window because the McD's she visited did not have Chicken McNuggets^® on the breakfast menu pretty much guaranteed that she would get her drive-thru privileges revoked.