A Tarragon spokesman said it's the company's policy not to comment on pending litigation.

The complaint claims Tarragon stock traded at artificially inflated prices, reaching a high of $26.76 a share on July 22, 2005, as a result of defendants' false statements. The stock then fell, reaching 94 cents a share on Aug. 9, when Tarragon said its quarterly report would be delayed to give the company time to evaluate more than $125 million in property impairment charges and other write-downs made necessary by its decision to sell properties under adverse market conditions.

Tarragon and its subsidiaries are active in the Northeast, Florida, Texas and Tennessee.

Fort Lauderdale-based subsidiary Tarragon South is the developer of Las Olas River House, a high-rise in downtown Fort Lauderdale that was completed last year, but still has at least 22 units up for sale; and a planned mixed-use project with a condo tower on the site of the Gay & Lesbian Community Center on Andrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale.

Tarragon is also an equity partner with Coscan Homes in Orchid Grove, a condo and townhouse community under construction in Pompano Beach.

To be eligible for those payments, their work should have produced a "remarkable result" that wouldn't have been the result of ordinary performance.

The Association of Flight Attendants, the U.S. trustee on the case and a former creditor had opposed the bonuses.

Cadwalader earned $35.4 million in fees and $2.2 million in expenses. Otterrbourg earned $7 million in fees and $210,231 in expenses. They were among 24 law firms and advisers that were part of Northwest's bankruptcy team. The group included Minneapolis-based Dorsey & Whitney, which had applied for final fees of $3.2 million and expenses of $171,753, according to legal filings.

He said he regrets that decision and made it hastily and without talking to an attorney.

He says he was under stress and pleaded guilty only to put the matter behind him.

Attorney William Martin specifically cited "tremendous pressure" from journalists as the reason for the guilty plea.

Martin said he's arguing that his client was under extreme stress from reporters hounding him about his sexuality.

Martin mentioned The Idaho Statesman by name, the Boise newspaper that spent months investigating whether Craig engaged in homosexual encounters.

Craig has flatly denied those suggestions on numerous occasions. In his first address to the public after the political journal Roll Call broke the story of the Minneapolis sting, Craig accused the newspaper of conducting a "witch hunt."

His chief spokesman said that Craig has dropped virtually all notions of trying to finish his third term in the Senate, but the Senator has shown signs of wavering on his announced plan to resign from the Senate at the end of September.

The documents filed Monday aim at undoing Craig's earlier decision to plead guilty to the lewd conduct charges in order to give him a chance to fight the accusations.

According to court documents, the senator "felt compelled to grasp the lifeline" - hoping that if he were to submit to an interview and plead guilty that none of the allegations would be made public.

The proposed withdrawal would reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to about 130,000 - the same as before the "surge" earlier this year aimed at reducing sectarian violence.

Congressional Democratic leaders criticized Mr. Bush's plan after a meeting with the president Tuesday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was "an insult to the intelligence of the American people."

General Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, testified before House and Senate committees earlier this week. General Petraeus says the troop increase has led to decreased violence in Iraq, but he and Crocker cautioned against a premature withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Iraq's national security advisor, Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, told reporters Wednesday that the number of U.S. troops could be reduced to 100,000 by the end of 2008. He says it would depend on the security threat within and outside the country, and the readiness level of Iraqi security forces.

Jackson DeMarco was represented by Studley's Royce Sharf, branch manager and executive vice president; Bruce Schuman, senior vice president, and Mike Props, managing director, all from Studley's Orange County office. Sharf and Props represented the firm on its original lease at the same location in 2002.

The law firm recently added 12 attorneys when it expanded its complex litigation practice, according to Sharf. "Maintaining the firm's ability to remain flexible and align its real estate occupancy needs with the business plan has been of paramount importance,” he adds.

The Studley brokers tell GlobeSt.com that Jackson DeMarco wanted to restructure its lease because the firm continues to grow and needed to lock down future expansion space. The deal allows the firm to grow in stages over the next couple years.

Terms of the new lease were not disclosed. Asking rates for space in the 2030 Main St. building, a 16-story tower of nearly 347,000 sf that was built in 1990, are $3.30 per sf per month.

The building's owner, the State Teachers Retirement Board of Ohio, was represented by CBRE's John Weiner in the new lease with Jackson DeMarco. The law firm also maintains an office in Westlake village.

The judge, Robert G. Mahoney, said the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 did not give the SEC authority to charge an individual who no longer is an officer or director of an SRO.

SEC enforcement staff members, who have appealed the adverse ruling to the full commission, called it an “unduly narrow interpretation” of the law.

“If left undisturbed, the [administrative law judge’s] ruling would lead to the absurd result that officers and directors of SROs could evade the commission’s authority through resignation,” the appeal said.

What’s relevant in the case, according to SEC staff members, is when the alleged transgressions occurred, not Mr. Sodano’s status when the charges were brought.

The ruling is “absurd,” said Bill Singer, a securities lawyer with Stark & Stark of Lawrenceville, N.J., and a former Amex lawyer. “It points out the hypocrisy embedded in the SRO system, which retains for two years jurisdiction [over individual] brokers.

“What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander,” he added.

In his decision, Mr. Mahoney said the section of the exchange act that covers SRO officials “is unambiguous on its face, referring to the officers and directors of an SRO only in the present [tense].”

Legal technicality

After SEC enforcers brought formal charges against him last March, Mr. Sodano argued that, based on legislative history, Congress did not want the SEC to have authority over former SRO officials.

In 1987, Congress amended both the exchange act and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 to allow for a permanent bar against individual brokers or advisers, regardless of whether they were registered currently. At the same time, Congress did not likewise amend sections in those laws applying specifically to officers and directors at SROs, Mr. Sodano argued.

Mr. Mahoney ruled that when Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section, “it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally.”

SEC spokesman John Nester said he was not aware of any attempt by the agency or anyone in Congress to change the laws. Calls to the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee were not returned.

Unfair treatment alleged

Mr. Sodano’s lawyer, William Baker III, a partner in the Washington office of Los Angeles-based Latham & Watkins LLP, declined to comment. But in a filing with the SEC last month, Mr. Baker said the SEC enforcement team “grossly exaggerates” the violations and “ignores the extensive efforts” Mr. Sodano made to bring the exchange into compliance with order-handling rules.

The filing said that the SEC has not filed any enforcement actions against New York Stock Exchange officers for similar problems. The Amex itself settled related charges last March.

Mr. Sodano was hired by NASD chief executive Frank G. Zarb in June 1997 as the NASD’s chief financial officer. Today, Mr. Sodano is dean of the Frank G. Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

"Microsoft continues to have a stranglehold over the two products ... that nearly all consumers use," Houck said during an antitrust compliance hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. "Very little has happened in five years ... in those markets."

The California group of states -- the larger of two groups of states that sued Microsoft for antitrust violations -- will ask for an extension of all the middleware portions of the antitrust judgement, except for a section that governs the royalties Microsoft can charge PC manufacturers for the Windows operating system. Most of the antitrust judgment was scheduled to expire in November.

Microsoft lawyer Rick Rule said the company would need time to respond to Houck's proposal. Microsoft first heard of the plan to ask for an extension on Friday, he said, and the California group plans to file a formal extension request with the court in mid-October.

Rule seemed to suggest Microsoft would fight the five-year extension. U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly declined to impose a 10-year judgment in 2002, he said. "We think the picture of the computer industry is much rosier," Rule added. "We think it's clear that the decree has done its job."

Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans said the company will respond in more detail after it has seen the extension request. "We're a bit surprised that a few states are now requesting an extension of the consent decree, since they indicated just last month that they're not too fond of it," Evans said.

In August 2006, Microsoft already agreed to an extension of the section of the judgment requiring it to make its communications protocols available to other software vendors. Microsoft's efforts to fix technical documentation for the protocols have run into several delays. Houck on Tuesday asked Kollar-Kotelly to extend the communications protocol section of the judgment until 2012.

The California group does not "have any confidence" Microsoft will continue to improve the communications protocol program without oversight, Houck said. An independent auditor's report just issued questions whether Microsoft has released all the protocols mandated in the judgment, he added.

The California group's extension proposal comes after the U.S. Department of Justice and the New York group of states filed briefs last month saying the antitrust judgment has done its job. "There have been a number of developments in the competitive landscape ... that suggest that the Final Judgments are accomplishing their stated goal of fostering competitive conditions among middleware products, unimpeded by anticompetitive exclusionary obstacles erected by Microsoft," said the report from the DOJ and New York group, which includes five states.

But Houck Tuesday disputed that assessment. At the time of the judgment, a handful of PC vendors were preinstalling a competing Web browser on PCs, he said. Today, no major ones are, he said.