The Florida attorney general's office is investigating possible misconduct by a large law firm that files foreclosures for banks, according to a posting on its Web site.

The Web site said the office is looking at whether Florida Default Law Group, based in Tampa, was involved in "fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases." Mortgage documents that are used to prove a bank has a right to foreclose "have later been shown to be legally inadequate and/or insufficient," the Web site said.

A spokeswoman for Florida Default declined to comment. Ryan Wiggins, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill McCollum, said the investigation began last fall.

The civil probe comes as some judges and federal prosecutors in Florida are paying close attention to how banks—and so-called foreclosure-mill law firms that work for banks—are attempting to take control of homes from borrowers in default. Judges across the country have chastised banks and their attorneys for attempting to seize properties they can't prove they own.

A teenager convicted of first-degree murder for fatally stabbing another student in the bathroom of a suburban Boston high school has been sentenced to life in prison.

John Odgren was sentenced Friday to a mandatory life sentence with no possibility for parole by Middlesex Superior Court Judge Jane Haggerty.

Odgren's lawyer filed a motion asking the judge to declare a state law that forces mandatory life sentences for juvenile offenders as unconstitutional. The judge says she will take it up at a later date.

Odgren was convicted Thursday by a jury that rejected the defense's assertion that the then-16-year-old boy was legally insane when he stabbed 15-year-old James Alenson at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School on Jan. 19, 2007.

Prosecutors depicted Odgren as a calculating killer who picked a victim at random.

A woman on Thursday admitted having her antique dealer husband killed 20 years ago in front of his girlfriend's Manhattan home, then collecting millions in life insurance after his death.

Barbara Kogan pleaded guilty in Manhattan state Supreme Court to first-degree manslaughter, conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and grand larceny. She faces up to 25 years in prison on each count at her May 19 sentencing.

Kogan, 67, was charged two years ago with murder in the Oct. 23, 1990, death of her husband, George, who was shot three times in front of his girlfriend's Upper East Side apartment building.

Prosecutors say she got her lawyer, Manuel Martinez, to hire a hitman to kill Kogan during their bitter divorce fight, then collected $4.3 million in her husband's life insurance.

Kogan's attorney, Barry Levin, said she entered the plea to spare her two sons from being forced to testify against her at trial.

"It had been weighing heavy on her mind," Levin said. "She decided she wanted to put this behind her."

Though long suspected, Kogan wasn't charged until 2008, after information implicating her emerged at Martinez' trial. His prosecution was delayed for years while he was held on unrelated charges in Mexico. Martinez is serving a 25-year-to-life term for the killing.

Prosecutors asked a federal judge on Thursday to sentence a former kosher slaughterhouse executive to 25 years in prison, less than the life sentence they have said they were entitled to request.

Former Agriprocessors Inc. manager Sholom Rubashkin, who was convicted of 86 counts of financial fraud in November, gave a tearful, halting speech at the end of his sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids. He was charged following a May 2008 immigration raid at the former Agriprocessors slaughterhouse, where 389 workers were arrested on immigration charges.

Rubashkin told the court he had made mistakes and was remorseful. In a thick Brooklyn accent, he reiterated that he was sorry for his actions, and that he was put in a position by his family of running the operations of a large plant for which he had no training or interest.

"I'm basically a conflicted and flawed human being," Rubashkin said. "Conflicted in that I allowed myself to be drafted into my family's business against my wishes and better judgment.

Lawmakers are urging Congress to move swiftly to put restrictions on corporate and union sponsorship of political campaign ads.

They are seeking to counteract a January ruling by the Supreme Court which upheld the First Amendment rights of such groups to spend money on ads, greatly increasing their ability to influence federal elections.

Lawmakers are pushing legislation requiring that political ads reveal their top funding sources and that the CEO of the company paying for the ad appear in it with an "I approve this message" statement.

The Democratic-led supporters say their goal is to pass the legislation by July 4, the time frame that is necessary if a new law were to be in effect for the November midterm elections.

Another lawsuit has been filed against Winters Yonker & Rousselle, asking that it be forced to forfeit all attorneys’ fees for allegedly accepting unethical referrals from a for-profit referral service.

The complaint, filed Wednesday in Jefferson Circuit Court, asks that the suit be certified as a class action on behalf of all of the firm’s clients in Kentucky.

The suit was filed by James Rose and Christopher Rose of Elizabethtown, who says they hired the law firm after a motor-vehicle accident in May 2009.

The suit says that about two minutes after calling the 1-800-ASK-GARY referral line, Christopher Rose, James’ adult son, was contacted by as representative of Winters & Yonker, as the firm is now known, and instructed to meet him at 1st Physicians Rehabilitation Inc., a medical office in Louisville, where the law firm signed up the Roses as clients.

The suit alleges that the law firm obtained the referrals through “illegal and/or unethical solicitation,” and that attorneys fees collected by Winters & Yonker from the Roses and other clients should be forfeited. Kentucky lawyer ethics rules prohibit referrals in return for anything of value.

A hearing resumed for the last of five lawyers accused of ethical violations in the handling of Kwame Kilpatrick's text messages Wednesday with testimony from the former mayor's lawyer Samuel McCargo.

McCargo, who was among the first of the lawyers cited for ethical violations, told the Attorney Discipline Board that Assistant Corporation Counsel Valerie Colbert Osamuede never was shown documents that detailed what the text messages purportedly said. He also said she never saw copies of the actual messages before they were delivered in secret to another of Kilpatrick's lawyers.

McCargo, who has yet to receive his punishment for being found guilty in March on five counts of professional misconduct, also said Colbert Osamuede probably didn't violate the state's Freedom of Information Act by withholding requested documents that showed how the text messages were kept a secret part of an $8.4 million whistle-blower lawsuit settlement in 2007.