Prosecutor

The Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office is turning over prosecution of 12-year-old Autumn Pasquale accused killers to Camden County after being notified that members of her family planned to sue the office. In a statement Wednesday, the office said going ahead with a prosecution under the cloud of a likely suit "created a potential conflict. " The announcement came shortly after it was learned that Autumn's mother, Jennifer Cornwell, had filed a suit against her ex-husband, Anthony Pasquale, in a dispute over control of a memorial fund set up in their daughter's name.

AS THE TWO teens accused of killing Autumn Pasquale sit in a juvenile detention center, a flurry of legal action has forced the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office off the case and pitted Autumn's mother against her father. In a news release issued Wednesday afternoon, a spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office said that it was "no longer possible" to handle the prosecution of the two accused Clayton teens because an attorney for Anthony Pasquale, Autumn's father, had filed notice of a potential civil suit.

Prosecutors are considering charges against the driver of an SUV that ran head-on into a minivan, killing a woman and her 18-year-old daughter in Merchantville on Thursday. Witnesses estimated that the SUV was traveling up to 100 m.p.h. when it crossed into the opposite lane and hit the other vehicle on Chapel Avenue near the Merchantville Circle. The speed limit there is 25 m.p.h. Officials on Friday identified the victims as Anada Medina, 36, and daughter Stephanie Garcia, both of Cherry Hill.

In a case that has already put a Philadelphia Catholic Church official behind bars for covering up child sexual abuse, a jury returned guilty verdicts Wednesday against a priest and a former parochial-school teacher for the sexual assault of a 10-year-old Northeast altar boy. Wednesday's verdicts against the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero for the serial sexual assault of a St. Jerome's pupil in 1998 and 1999 were lauded by District Attorney...

CENTENNIAL, Colo. - It was hours after a deadly Colorado theater shooting, and James Holmes was not acting like a man who methodically planned the attack and booby-trapped his apartment. As a police detective interviewed him, Holmes started pretending the paper bags on his hands - meant to preserve gunshot residue - were puppets. The former neuroscience graduate student tried to jam a staple into an electrical outlet. He played with a cup on the table. At least two officers noted that his eyes were dilated.

HOW DO YOU convince jurors that the Mafia is a menace when nobody got hurt? How do you even keep them all awake after nearly three months? That was the challenge facing Assistant U.S. Attorney John Han on Thursday as the marathon trial of reputed Philadelphia mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and six associates entered the closing-argument stage. Describing La Cosa Nostra as the IBM and General Electric of the criminal underworld, Han spent more than three hours explaining the structure of the Philly mob and how it has profited from its reputation for violence - even if no overt acts of violence are included in the latest indictment.

CAIRO - Egypt's chief prosecutor ordered an investigation on Thursday into allegations that opposition leaders committed treason by inciting supporters to overthrow Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The probe by a Morsi-appointed prosecutor was launched a day after the president called for a dialogue with the opposition to heal rifts opened in the bitter fight over an Islamist-drafted constitution just approved in a referendum. The opposition decried the investigation as a throwback to Hosni Mubarak's regime, when the law was used to smear and silence opponents.

CAIRO - Egypt's top prosecutor retracted his resignation on Thursday, a decision that could cause a new uproar in the country after he was accused of pressuring a judge not to release protesters opposed to the Islamist president. The prosecutor, Talaat Abdullah, who was appointed by President Mohammed Morsi, told reporters he resigned on Monday "under pressure" and amid "abnormal circumstances" with prosecutors holding a sit-in in front of his office. The protesting prosecutors accused Abdullah of pressuring a judge not to release 130 anti-Morsi protesters taken into custody this month.