Federal Prison

A former city Highway Patrol officer who admitted stealing $10,000 from a suspected drug dealer and splitting it with a fellow officer was sentenced yesterday to four months in prison and fined $4,000. He told the judge he still couldn't figure out why he threw his career away. "For 15 years I was a good cop and did the best job I could," Michael Stieber told U.S. District Judge Herbert J. Hutton. "Then I made a mistake and did something wrong and took somebody else's money.

NEW YORK — On Tuesday morning, Old City developer Michael Yaron stood in the hallway of a Manhattan courthouse with friends and family, framed by a tall open window, the Empire State Building rising up behind him. A few hours later, inside Courtroom 21D, Yaron learned that the empire he started from humble beginnings in Israel, in the storied halls of Oxford University, and on the streets he transformed in Philadelphia, will come to an end...

Crime paid very well for Larry Lavin. But now, the Ivy League-educated former dentist is the one who's paying dearly. The man once dubbed "Doctor Dealer" has spent the last 16 years in federal prisons on drug and tax charges. If his attempts to reduce the remainder of his sentence fail, Lavin likely will serve another seven years. It's a far cry from the early 1980s, when Lavin, who went to Phillips Exeter Academy and the University of Pennsylvania, lived lavishly on the Main Line.

Convicted mobster Salvatore "Chuckie" Merlino - the father of former Philadelphia mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino - died Monday at a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas. The elder Merlino, 73, had spent the last quarter-century behind bars. The federal Bureau of Prisons listed his potential release date as August 2016. Local attorney Joseph Santaguida confirmed Merlino's death but offered little other information Tuesday. He said simply that Merlino had been "sick for a while.

LUBBOCK, Texas - Billie Sol Estes, 88, a flamboyant Texas huckster who became one of the most notorious men in America in 1962 when he was accused of looting a federal crop subsidy program, was found dead by a caretaker early Tuesday at his home in DeCordova Bend, southwest of Dallas. Mr. Estes was best known for the scandal that broke during President John F. Kennedy's administration involving phony financial statements and nonexistent fertilizer tanks. Several lower-level agriculture officials resigned, and he wound up spending several years in prison.

In sentencing the former head of a Northeast Philadelphia charter school to more than three years in prison for plundering its coffers, a federal judge yesterday called for more scrupulous government oversight of the taxpayer-funded charters so "this type of criminal activity is not allowed to be repeated. " On one side of U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno's courtroom were a few dozen staff members and parents of students at Philadelphia Academy Charter School, angered by the confessed crimes of Kevin M. O'Shea.

A Gloucester County man pleaded guilty Tuesday to producing and possessing child pornography, federal authorities said. Patrick Mergen, 40, of Sewell, was arrested in September after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators received a tip from police in Australia that Mergen was trading child porn with a pedophile there. Mergen is scheduled to be sentenced in March and faces up to 50 years in federal prison.    - Robert Moran  

KABONI SAVAGE, the convicted drug dealer facing the death penalty if also convicted of committing or ordering 12 murders, on Monday was portrayed by his attorneys and girlfriend as a good-natured man - even while threatening the girlfriend. It was the first day of the defense team's presentation of its case to the jury after federal prosecutors rested last week, capping 2 1/2 months of testimony. "We got a bond for life. I'd kill you before I let you go," Savage, 38, who is serving 30 years in federal prison for drug conspiracy, reportedly told Crystal Copeland during a phone call recorded by authorities.

It was the second-biggest mistake of LaRue Y. Smith's life. Laid off from his job, Smith went to his computer, copied out a list of 7-Eleven stores in and around Philadelphia, grabbed a gun, and started sticking them up. The clerks and customers were terrified. Smith fired his revolver once, by accident, and almost shot himself in the leg. Police caught the former Marine eight weeks after his crimes had started in June 2007. Within hours, he confessed to a dozen robberies that netted him an unimpressive $2,510, plus cigarettes, chips, and soft drinks.

Admitted mob hit man Rosario Bellocchi, who was once engaged to marry the daughter of reputed mob boss John Stanfa, pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge yesterday and formally agreed to become a government witness. Bellocchi, 26, appeared calm and relaxed during a brief appearance in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia before Judge Ronald Buckwalter. He pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, admitting his involvement in one murder, one attempted murder, three murder conspiracies, and one kidnapping.