The plea deal calls for 250 hours of community service at an Albany health clinic, $22,500 in restitution and a $5,000 fine. Novello faced up to 12 years in prison if convicted on all charges. She was accused of costing taxpayers $48,000 by misusing the workers.

She pleaded guilty to filing a false document involving a worker's duties.

Investigators said Novello, originally from Puerto Rico, used state workers to chauffeur her on shopping trips and rearrange heavy furniture at her apartment while she was New York's top health official. She now lives in Florida.

In court Friday, Albany County Judge Stephen Herrick asked Novello if she had intended to defraud the state.

Crime laboratory reports may not be used against criminal defendants at trial unless the analysts responsible for creating them give testimony and subject themselves to cross-examination, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a 5-to-4 decision.

The ruling was an extension of a 2004 decision that breathed new life into the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause, which gives a criminal defendant the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.”

Four dissenting justices said that scientific evidence should be treated differently than, say, statements from witnesses to a crime. They warned that the decision would subject the nation’s criminal justice system to “a crushing burden” and that it means “guilty defendants will go free, on the most technical grounds.”

The two sides differed sharply about the practical consequences of requiring testimony from crime laboratory analysts. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the four dissenters, said Philadelphia’s 18 drug analysts will now each be required to testify in more than 69 trials next year, and Cleveland’s six drug analysts in 117 trials each.

Prosecutor Nicole Waid told U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola at a hearing that 88-year-old James von Brunn's doctors say he won't be ready for his first court appearance in the shooting until early next week.

Von Brunn faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of museum guard Stephen T. Johns, who had come to open the door for him. Von Brunn was hospitalized after being shot in the face by other guards. The FBI has said he is likely to survive.

Ward gave no specifics about von Brunn's condition, except to say that he can hear and understand information about his case.

Attorneys said he was moved Friday from George Washington University Hospital, where he was taken after the shooting, to the Greater Southeast Community Hospital, where he can be overseen by corrections officials.

Facciola scheduled a hearing with von Brunn for June 30. Von Brunn's court-appointed attorney, A.J. Kramer, said he has been in touch with his client and will let him know about the hearing.

The high court agreed to hear an Obama administration appeal seeking to reinstate a 2006 law providing for the continued detention of "sexually dangerous" convicted federal inmates who have served their prison terms.

A U.S. appeals court based in Virginia struck down the law for exceeding the limits of congressional authority and intruding on police powers Constitution reserves for the states, many of which have similar laws.

The law had been challenged by five inmates who had been kept in custody at a federal prison hospital in North Carolina after their sentences ended.

The U.S. Justice Department said a total of 95 inmates have been identified as possible candidates for post-sentence detention under the law.

In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled the states could confine dangerous sex offenders to mental institutions after they serve their sentences.

Many state laws provide for the commitment under civil law of mentally ill sex offenders who pose a risk of committing more crimes involving children if released into the community.

The federal law defined "sexually dangerous" as someone who suffers from a serious mental illness, abnormality or disorder and would have difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation, if released.

Penelope Jordan pleaded guilty Monday to theft of government property.

The 61-year-old woman was arrested in March after police found her mother's decaying body barricaded in a bedroom in Sebastian, about an hour north of West Palm Beach.

Jordan told officials her mother had actually died in early 2003.

Prosecutors say Jordan was collecting Social Security benefits, as well a military pension from her mother's late husband.

Jordan's plea deal calls for her to pay $237,876 in restitution. Her sentencing was scheduled for Sept. 21.

Tony Slone, 43, entered the plea in Superior Court in Victorville, said Susan Mickey, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County district attorney's office.

Slone was charged with sexually abusing his now 13- and 16-year old stepdaughters over the last four years. His wife was charged with child abuse for allegedly letting her elder daughter continue to have contact with Slone after he fathered her 13-month-old child.

Tony Slone was arrested June 4 in Chester, N.Y., where he had traveled for work, and was extradited to California on Sunday. He is a registered sex offender and previously served an eight year-prison sentence for lewd acts with a child.

Prosecutors say they learned of the abuse when a high school student reported reading sexual text messages on her friend's cell phone from her friend's stepfather.

Mickey said an attorney from the conflict panel was appointed for Slone. No one at the panel's offices was immediately available to comment. Slone's next court date is June 30.

Anita Slone, 47, reached a plea deal with prosecutors last week. She pleaded guilty in exchange for no more than 180 days in county jail and five years probation, said Kathleen DiDonato, a deputy district attorney.

DiDonato said the probation would help protect the daughters until they are adults. Anita Slone is scheduled to be sentenced in July.