Instead of reporting to federal prison last June for bilking millions from his investors, Samuel Israel faked his suicide and took off in an RV for nearly a month before surrendering.

The 49-year-old Israel has spent months getting a physical and psychological checkup at a prison hospital in Ayer, Mass. A federal judge ordered the evaluation to help him decide whether Israel is competent to plead guilty to going on the lam before a court date set for Friday.

The judge refused to accept the plea last year when Israel told him that treatment for his addiction to painkillers had impaired his thinking.

The ruling Thursday tracks the conclusion of the initial investigation that Billey Joe Johnson had shot himself with a 12-gauge shotgun.

The 17-year-old's death has inflamed suspicion since Dec. 8. That's when the standout running back at George County High School was killed after a deputy stopped him for running a red light.

Johnson's family and the NAACP had rejected suicide as the cause of the death. They have said he had too much to live for including a shot at playing in the NFL.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

LUCEDALE, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi grand jury is expected to release its report on the shooting death of a star high school football player during a traffic stop.

An initial investigation concluded that Billey Joe Johnson had shot and killed himself with a 12-gauge shotgun.

The 17-year-old's death has inflamed suspicion since Dec. 8. That's when the standout running back at George County High School was killed after a deputy stopped him for running a red light.

Assistant District Attorney Brice Wiggins says the grand jury's report is expected at a hearing Thursday afternoon in George County Circuit Court in Lucedale.

Johnson's family and the NAACP have rejected suicide as the cause of the death. They say he had too much to live for including a shot at playing in the NFL.

Wayne Tompkins was pronounced dead at 6:32 p.m. Wednesday after he failed to get courts to listen to his claims of innocence. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of 15-year-old Lisa DeCarr, who disappeared from the Tampa home she shared with Tompkins and her mother on March 24, 1983.

Her mom and others thought she had run away, but her body was found a year later under the home's porch. She had been strangled with the belt of her pink bathrobe.

Despite a flurry of last-minute court appeals, Tompkins' attorneys were unable to get a court to issue a stay so they could perform more DNA testing.

Terry Lisotta was arraigned in Baton Rouge on 14 counts of theft. Lisotta, CEO of Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. until April 2007, is accused of improperly spending about $30,000 of the firm's money.

The criminal charges stem from an investigation by the Legislative Auditor's Office that questioned $106,000 of Lisotta's expense reports from 2003-2006. State Attorney General Buddy Caldwell's office is prosecuting.

Eighteen-year-old Mercades Nichols pleaded guilty Tuesday to battery and tampering with a witness. The State Attorney's Office said a kidnapping charge was dropped.

Nichols was among a group of teens arrested in 2008 and accused of attacking a 16-year-old classmate. The attack was recorded on video and broadcast around the world.

Nichols also agreed to plead guilty to charges of battery, assault and violation of an injunction in an unrelated case, in which she was accused of stalking a former boyfriend.

Under the plea agreement, Nichols could spend a maximum of three years on probation and won't spend time in jail. She is scheduled be sentenced in March.

The court heard arguments in a case from Vermont in which the state Supreme Court threw out the assault conviction of career criminal Michael Brillon because his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial had been violated. Brillon was jailed for three years and went through six defense attorneys before his trial for hitting his girlfriend in the face.

The justices are trying to determine when delays caused by public defenders can amount to a constitutional violation and when governments can be held responsible since they're the ones who assign and pay the lawyers for indigent defendants.

As the lawyers for Brillon and Vermont recounted the actions of Brillon, his lawyers, the state's public defender office and the courts, it became clear that, as Justice David Souter said, "There's plenty of blame to go around."

For some other violations, criminal defendants are entitled to new trials. But when a defendant is deprived of a speedy trial, the Supreme Court has ruled that dismissal of the charges is the only remedy.

"Aren't you giving defense attorneys a perverse incentive" to delay, asked Justice Samuel Alito.

Forty states and 15 organizations — state governments, county governments, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a victim's rights' group — are backing the Vermont prosecutor's appeal of the ruling, worried that if it stands criminal suspects will try to game the system and get the result Brillon did.

Charles G. Martin, 43, of Glencoe, Ill., and Malibu, Calif., was arrested Tuesday night in the Los Angeles area, and John E. Walsh, 60, of Lake Forest was picked up Wednesday morning on a criminal complaint charging them with wire fraud.

A court order closed their One World Capital Group LLC in December 2007 and froze its last $636,815 of assets. The two men operated a "Ponzi-like" scheme diverting money out of customer accounts and into their pockets, prosecutors said.

The criminal complaint was filed in U.S. District Court on Tuesday.

One World was formed in 2005 and had offices in Winnetka and New York, prosecutors said. Martin and Walsh misled customers and federal regulators to conceal the fact that they siphoned off money customers thought was being used for currency trades.

Credit card and bank records show Martin spent more than $1 million at a strip club and restaurants, nearly $1 million at hotels and $1 million renting private jets, prosecutors said. He also purchased a fleet of luxury vehicles, donated hundreds of thousands to celebrity charity events and hired bodyguards, they said.