A court of appeal in October ruled that a jury should determine if Brian Reid has evidence that Google routinely paid smaller bonuses and gave poorer performance reviews to older managers.

On Wednesday, the state high court said it would review that decision.

The Mountain View-based company has denied Reid's allegations but also refuses to say why he was fired. In court documents, the company said Reid was fired when the program he managed was canceled.

Reid sued Google in July 2004, five months after he lost his job as its director of operations.

A Brazilian doctor charged with manslaughter in an immigrant's liposuction death tried to plead guilty Wednesday, but the judge instead set the case for trial after the doctor contradicted prosecutors.

Luiz Carlos Ribeiro appeared in Superior Court to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in a case that exposed an underground cosmetic surgery network used by Brazilian immigrants.

Prosecutors were giving a standard recitation of the facts they could have proved at trial when Ribeiro, 51, told the judge he didn't agree with many of them, insisting he had a sterile surgical area and the proper resuscitation equipment when he performed the fat-removal surgery on Fabiola DePaula in the basement of a suburban condominium in July 2006.

DePaula, a 24-year-old Brazilian immigrant, died of complications from the surgery, including pulmonary fat emboli, or fat particles in the lungs.

Ribeiro insisted there was nothing that could have saved the woman.

"If I had 100 years, I would swear that I didn't kill anybody because I would never kill," Ribeiro told the judge. "Fabiola's death was sudden. I had no chance to do anything."

Prosecutors say Ribeiro performed liposuction, nose jobs and Botox injections for several years in the Framingham area, mostly for the town's large Brazilian immigrant population.

The procedures were performed on a massage table, under unsanitary conditions and without any emergency oxygen in place, authorities allege.

Judge Wendie Gershengorn scheduled the trial for April 3.

In September, Ribeiro's ex-wife, Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro, was sentenced to one year in prison when she pleaded guilty to manslaughter and admitted acting as a nurse for her husband.

Luiz Ribeiro was a licensed doctor in his native Brazil, but neither he nor his ex-wife was licensed to practice medicine in the United States, authorities said.

His lawyer, Jeanne Earley, said after the hearing she was stunned the plea was not accepted. She was going to ask for a 2- to 2 1/2-year prison term. Prosecutors had planned to seek 6 to 8 years. He's already served about 18 months since his arrest.

"He's horrified as any doctor would be about the death of somebody. But he is a good doctor, has practiced medicine for many years in Brazil," she said.

Prosecutors said if the procedure had been monitored in a hospital, DePaula's death could have been prevented.

"We are confident that we have a strong case against the defendant and intend to prove that case in court," District Attorney Gerry Leone said in a statement Wednesday.

A panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled there was no basis to John Demjanjuk's challenge of a December 2005 ruling that he could be deported to his native Ukraine or to Germany or Poland.

The government initially claimed Demjanjuk was the notoriously sadistic guard at the Treblinka camp known as "Ivan the Terrible." Officials later concluded that he was not, but a judge ruled in 2002 that documents from World War II prove Demjanjuk was a Nazi guard at various death or forced labor camps.

Demjanjuk, 87, lives in the Cleveland suburb of Seven Hills. He has steadfastly denied that he ever helped the Nazis, arguing that he served in the Soviet Army and was captured by Germany in 1942 and became a prisoner of war.

Authorities said the firm made an estimated $250 million over two decades by filing such legal actions.

Seven people, including three former partners at the firm, have pleaded guilty in the case. Lazar was the first to be sentenced. He also was fined $600,000.

U.S. District Judge John F. Walter said he was outraged that a former attorney could "flatly lie" as part of legal proceedings.

The lack of respect for the legal system amounted to the "absolute height of arrogance," the judge said, adding that he would not have hesitated to send Lazar to prison if not for his age and deteriorating health. Lazar could have faced up to 18 years in federal prison.

Wearing a dark blue suit with a knitted sweater draped across his shoulders, presumably for extra warmth, the frail-sounding Lazar said he understood Walter's concerns but felt he had already been punished for his wrongdoing.

"I have been under investigation for seven or eight years and it has been seven or eight years of hard time," Lazar said. "That's all I can say."

With the judge's consent, Lazar remained seated throughout the hearing.

Lazar pleaded guilty in October to obstruction of justice, subscribing to a false tax return and making a false declaration to the court.

Walter said he spent the weekend thinking about a suitable sentence for Lazar, worrying that a noncustodial term would send a message that wealthy defendants can buy their way out of confinement.

But ultimately, Walter said Lazar's infirmity made him unsuitable for prison.

Lazar thanked the judge after the sentencing.

"Good luck to you," the judge replied.

Lazar then left the courtroom and was greeted by members of his family.

Lazar has already repaid $1.5 million of the money prosecutors said he was paid as part of the scheme.

The law firm, previously known as Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman, paid $11.3 million in kickbacks to people who became plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits against companies such as AT&T Inc., Lucent, WorldCom, Microsoft Corp. and Prudential Insurance, prosecutors said.

The tactic allowed the firm's attorneys to be among the first to file litigation and secure the lucrative position as lead plaintiffs' counsel, according to court documents.

The firm dominated the industry in securities class-action lawsuits, which involve shareholders who claim they suffered losses because executives misled them about a company's financial condition.

The three former partners who have pleaded guilty are William Lerach, Steven Schulman and David Bershad.

Lerach's high-profile legal victories included a $7 billion judgment against now-defunct energy giant Enron Corp. He pleaded guilty as part of a deal to conspiracy to obstruct justice and make false statements.

Schulman pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge. He agreed to forfeit $1.85 million to the government and to pay a $250,000 fine.

Bershad pleaded guilty to conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with the government.

Firm co-founder Melvyn Weiss has pleaded not guilty to one count each of conspiracy, mail fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice in a revised indictment.

The Milberg Weiss firm itself has pleaded not guilty to two counts of conspiracy and one count each of obstruction of justice and making false statements.

Flatsigned Press Inc., a book publisher based in Nashville, Tenn., says Imus insulted the company last year in ads it paid for to promote a book by Ford on the Warren Commission's investigation into the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

On his "Imus in the Morning" show, the talker told WFAN listeners the publishers "have been waiting for (Ford) to croak so they can unload these (books)," the lawsuit claims.

Besides calling the ad spots "cheesy," Imus said of Ford's death, "Now that he's flatLINED, you go to flatSIGNED.com," the lawsuit filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court says.

Marc Held, Flatsigned's lawyer, said Thursday that Ford approved the book and signed the copies Flatsigned was selling. Imus was told to read the script "word for word" and not insult the sponsor, "but he kept doing it," Held said.

Flatsigned's sales dropped $40,000 a day for several months after Imus' "libelous and disparaging statements," court papers say. The papers also say stores refused to stock the book because of his comments.

Flatsigned said it paid for two 30-second ad scripts a day for three days — Jan. 29, 30 and 31, 2007.

Imus, 67, read the first script as written, court papers say, but in later readings of the script, he made "unequivocally unacceptable" remarks about the publisher, even after officials at CBS, WFAN's parent, asked him to stop.

Karen Mateo, spokeswoman for CBS, said she had no comment on the lawsuit.

Imus, fired from WFAN last year after making a racially charged remark about the Rutgers University women's basketball team, now has a syndicated show on New York's WABC, which is owned by Citadel Broadcasting Corp.

A spokeswoman for Imus did not immediately return a call for comment, and his lawyer, Martin Garbus, was said to be traveling.

At a point where Imus was supposed to say Ford hand-signed the books before he died, Imus asked, "How else would he sign them, with his foot?" the lawsuit says.

During another ad spot, court papers say, Imus said, "Now that ol' President Ford has flatLINED, buy your piece of American history at FlatSIGNED.com."

Court papers say Imus acknowledged, "They asked me not to say that, but ..." He then agreed with someone in the studio that the play on words was too tempting to pass up, the lawsuit says.

Court papers say Flatsigned rejected an offer by CBS and WFAN in February 2007 to provide 15 "make good" commercial spots on other programs.

The lawsuit asks for $4 million in compensatory damages for breach of contract, libel and malice, and for another $59,000 spent for a newspaper ad that ran after the commercials on Imus's show.