Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett has been declared dead by a Chicago judge five months after his plane disappeared.

The 63-year-old went missing on September 3 after taking off in a single-engined plane from a Nevada airstrip.

His wife had asked for him to be declared legally dead.

The judge heard testimony from Mr Fossett's wife, Peggy, and a family friend, as well as from a search-and-rescue expert, before deciding there was sufficient evidence to declare him dead.

Mr Fossett earned millions of dollars trading futures and options on Chicago exchanges.

Attorneys representing his estate had filed a petition to have him declared legally dead so his assets could be distributed according to his will.

Mr Fossett was a record-setting balloonist, sailor and pilot who completed non-stop flights around the world.

Mrs Fossett's lawyer, Michael LoVallo, said: "It was very sad and at first she hoped and sort-of envisioned him walking down the road the next day with another story to tell.

"But as the days went on, she realised it wasn't going to happen as it had on other occasions when he'd had close calls."

Mr Fossett was on a pleasure flight when he vanished and was not looking for a dry lake bed to use as a surface on which to set the world land speed record, as was initially reported.

Much to the surprise of Nee's lawyers, Grabau started to issue his ruling close to 10 a.m., before closing arguments had been made. "The Commonwealth has proved this case beyond a reasonable doubt ..., " he began.

Several people gasped. Some of Nee's family and friends began sobbing. Nee's father, Thomas, stormed out of the crowded courtroom, red-faced, muttering "This is due process?"

But when Nee's lawyer, Thomas Drechsler, stood up and pointed out that he had not made his closing argument yet, the judge stopped short of announcing his decision and directed the lawyer to begin his closing argument.

Almost two hours later, following Drechsler's impassioned argument on behalf of his client, the judge issued his ruling, convicting Nee on one of three charges. Nee is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday.

Inside the packed courtroom yesterday, Nee embraced his sobbing mother, telling her: "It's all right. It's all right."

It was an emotional and dramatic conclusion to a four-day bench trial that included testimony from a dozen witnesses. It also marked the end of a disturbing case that sent shockwaves through the town of Marshfield in the fall of 2004, when Nee and his friend, 16-year-old Tobin Kerns, were accused of conspiring to kill students and faculty at Marshfield High.

Authorities learned about the plan in September of that year, when Nee went to police with two classmates and told officers that Kerns was planning a massacre at the school. Nee told police the plan involved taking ammunition and explosive devices into the school, securing the school's exit doors with bicycle locks, and shooting students and staff.

Police arrested Kerns the following day.

Police didn't arrest Nee until a month later, after friends of Kerns implicated Nee as the mastermind of the plot. The two youths were once close friends; Nee even lived at the Kerns's home for a month during the spring of 2004.

Kerns's father, Ben, said that the boys had a falling out and that he believed Nee was trying to frame his son.

A grand jury returned indictments against Nee and Kerns in October 2004, charging both with conspiracy to commit murder, promotion of anarchy, and threatened use of deadly weapons at a school. Kerns and Nee pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Kerns was tried and found guilty of threatening to use deadly weapons and conspiracy to commit murder. In November, he was sentenced to 10 months in jail. He is being held at the Plymouth House of Correction.

In his closing argument yesterday, Drechsler cited a lack of physical evidence in Nee's case and inconsistencies in the prosecution witnesses' testimony.

Nee never planned to take part in the alleged plot, Drechsler said.

"My client was the first one who went to the police," he said. "Do the actions of Joe Nee bespeak of someone who intended to attack the school and kill people?"

Assistant District Attorney Karen O'Sullivan gave the judge the prosecution's point of view.

"The defendant's motive for going to police was to save himself," she said. "The defendant did not have intimate knowledge [of the plan] because he had overheard Mr. Kerns; the plan was as much his as it was Kerns's.

"This was more than a couple of teenagers shooting their mouths off," she said.

Grabau could sentence Nee to as much as 20 years in prison or let him go. Since January 2005, Nee has been free on $20,000 cash bail.

He is currently a student at Bunker Hill Community College.

Lawyers on both sides of the case said they were satisfied with the judge's ruling.

Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said he was pleased Nee was convicted on what he believed to be "the most serious" of the three charges.

"I'm hopeful the town of Marshfield will be able to heal from this," he said. "I'm hopeful that the two young men charged with these crimes will get their acts together and try to be good citizens."

The boy, identified only as "J.L.," was "adjudicated delinquent" and sentenced to 18 months probation. He must continue the counseling and therapy he is already undergoing, the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office said Thursday night.

Prosecutors had sought to have the youth serve a three-year sentence at a juvenile facility, the maximum allowed under law.

The boy was originally charged with aggravated manslaughter in the Aug. 23 death of 11-month-old Tahir Francis of Carteret, who died from head injuries after being kicked at the Beverly Bryant Family Day Care facility in Woodbridge Township.

It is still not clear what provoked the attack.

Beverly Bryant, 64, who operated the licensed facility out of her home, was not in the room when the infant was kicked. Authorities have said Bryant was distracted by a phone call and other home chores.

The center was ordered closed and Bryant was charged with child endangerment. She has pleaded not guilty.

British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have agreed to pay out a total of £102m to customers who were overcharged by the airlines between August 2004 and March 2006.

The airlines have agreed to a settlement with class action specialists Cohen Milstein Hausfield & Toll in a deal that now has to be ratified by the US courts.

Ripped-off customers who paid over the odds for fuel surcharges will be able to claim back between £1 and £11.50 per long-haul flight from British Airways and between £2 and £10 from Virgin.

Last year British Airways was fined £270m by UK and US competitions authorities for price fixing collusion while Virgin, though admitting complicity in the price fixing, escaped a fine after blowing the whistle on the practice.

A senior partner at Cohen Milstein said: “Customers in the UK should claim back what was unlawfully taken from them in order to demonstrate that such behaviour is unacceptable.”

Recently, on the American version of the TV show “The Office,” two of the main characters — Jim and Pam — confess to their co-workers that they’ve become romantically involved. In the spirit of openness and responsibility, the couple goes to the head of human resources, Toby, to ask whether they need to sign something attesting to their relationship. Toby (Paul Lieberstein), who also has a thing for Pam, tells them that won’t be necessary.

With Valentines Day upon us, we found ourselves asking: What would’ve happened if Jim and Pam were lawyers? Would they have insisted on signing a love contract to establish their rights and remedies in the event of a break-up? If Jim and Pam were both hard-working associates, would their relationship be more susceptible to trouble?

To work through these relationship issues — and the law that governs them — we caught up with Ashley Brightwell, a partner at Alston & Bird in Atlanta. Brightwell, who focuses on employment litigation, filled us in on the rise of love contracts, the phenomenon of lawyers who date lawyers and best practices for conducting a firm romance.

Hi Ashley. Thanks for chatting. So you’re a specialist on office romances. Talk about that a bit.

I do a lot of sexual harassment cases, mostly defending the company. Of sex harassment cases, I’d say a third stem from something that arguably began as a consensual relationship – either formal dating, or an affair — and then morphs into a bad break-up or something that’s no longer consensual. Or, just something as simple as inter-office flirtation where one party thought it was mutual, and the other party either never thought it was, or things progressed into it becoming unwelcome.

What are “love contracts”?

It used to be that many companies had strict prohibitions on office romances. Then they recognized that wasn’t going to work, and that no matter what the policies were, employees were going to get involved. That’s when the idea of a love contract came along. It’s a tool that employers use to protect themselves when an office romance goes sour. It’s a document that confirms that a relationship is voluntary and informs the parties of the company’s sexual harassment policies. It sets out a procedure if, at any point, the relationship goes south.

Let’s focus on law firms. We’ve heard a lot about the concept of “firm boyfriends” and “firm girlfriends.” Not romances, but the kinds of close relationships that develop between lawyers who spend more time with each other than they do with their families. Do a lot of law firm affairs begin like that?

I don’t have hard stats to back this up, but the number of affairs in law firms and romances that end up in marriage seem to be greater than in the general population. In large part, it’s because you’ve got a lot of people who are close in age, doing the same work, working alongside each other and putting in long hours. It’s inevitable, in those circumstances, that you’re going to have a lot of office romances.

What are the major pitfalls for lawyers who date lawyers? Take a partner dating an associate, for example.

I think when you’ve got a partner and an associate you’ve got two big issues. First is the fact that a partner can control the associate. Whether the relationship is going great or whether it goes south, the partner can really affect the person’s employment – in terms of the work they get, their reviews, and possibly even their salaries. The other issue is this: the perception among other associates and partners. For instance, if a female associate is getting great benefits because of a relationship it can result in hostile work environment claims from those outside the relationship.

Let’s try a hypothetical. I’m a sleep-deprived second-year associate who can’t find much time to socialize outside of work. One day I come running into your office, jump up and down on your couch, and confess that — on a firm-sponsored booze cruise — I fell in love with a summer associate. Advise me.

First you look and see what your firm’s policies say. If relationships are permissible in your organization, then there shouldn’t be a problem as far as HR or management are concerned. But I’d still advise informing someone higher up that it’s going on. And if that summer decides to become a lawyer at your firm, I’d take whatever steps I could to make sure you’re not working with that person. I’d avoid day-to-day interaction.

But I don’t need to fight my feelings, right?

Well, firms and companies are recognizing that if you have a policy against office romances, it’s just going to be broken. So they’re dealing with them in different ways – whether you call it a love contract or something less cheesy. So often I see things go bad, and then one person comes in and says it was never consensual to begin with. Typically, that person can produce a big stack of emails which look quite bad. But you can prevent a lot with a love contract in which the parties agree it’s voluntary.

James Michael McHaney of Washington, D.C., faces up to 10 years in prison after his felony conviction. He was fired from his job as a scheduler for Cantwell after his arrest last year. Earlier, he had worked for the 2004 presidential campaigns of Democrats Dick Gephardt and John Kerry.

Prosecutors say McHaney, 28, tried to arrange a sexual encounter with a 13-year-old boy last November. Police later found child pornography in his car and home.

He was initially charged with attempting to sexually exploit a minor, but pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of possession of child pornography. Prosecutors said he had more than 1,000 images of child pornography, as well as videos and DVDs portraying children as young as three engaged in sexual conduct.

McHaney's lawyer, Thomas Abbenante, called the case "a very tragic situation" for McHaney and his family. McHaney's parents were in court Thursday as U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan approved the plea agreement.

The parents declined to comment, as did Assistant U.S. Attorney Jean Sexton, who prosecuted the case.