The frauds involved so-called "straw buyers" — people who received a fee for agreeing to use their name and credit information to obtain mortgages on dozens of properties. Such scams have proliferated around the country in recent years, although rarely in such a high-profile location as Wednesday's bust.

The Hamptons have long been a getaway for the rich and famous, with celebrities and wealthy New Yorkers spending exorbitant amounts of money on mansions and summer rentals. Prosecutors said some of the homes that were rented to vacationers were fraudulently purchased through the mortgage fraud scheme.

The straw buyers either filled out phony loan applications claiming inflated or nonexistent incomes — in one case claiming a salary of nearly $450,000 a year — or said they were employed by corporations controlled by some of the schemers, Spota said.

One of these companies was identified as Arena Studios, Inc. a Manhattan business that at one time provided dominatrix services, the prosecutor said. Another source of straw buyers was a company called Maximum Restraint Films.

The brother of convicted Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff had his assets frozen by a New York state judge as part of a $2 million lawsuit filed by an investor who lost $470,000 in Madoff’s fraud.

New York Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bucaria yesterday signed an order temporarily freezing assets of Peter Madoff, who was chief compliance officer of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, according to a copy of the order. Bucaria will hold a hearing on April 3 in Nassau County.

Peter Madoff served as trustee for a $470,000 inheritance that 22-year-old law student Andrew Samuels received in 2003, his father, Howard Samuels, said in an interview. The judge issued the order in a lawsuit filed yesterday by the younger Samuels, who is suing Peter Madoff for $2 million for breaching his fiduciary duty by investing his inheritance with Bernard Madoff.

“All of his assets” are frozen, Howard Samuels said. “Everything.”

The order prohibits Peter Madoff, who lives in Old Westbury, New York, on Long Island, from removing, transferring or encumbering any funds or property and requires him to disclose all assets he owns. Andrew Samuels’ lawyer, Steven Schlesinger, said the freeze order reaches all of Madoff’s assets.

The vouchers have helped cover the cost of private school for foster children and disabled students. The justices ruled Wednesday that the programs run afoul of the Arizona Constitution's bans on using tax dollars to support private schools.

Lower courts had split on the issue.

Arizona's high court previously upheld another state effort to help defray the costs of private-school education. In 1999 it said an income tax credit for individuals making donations for private school scholarships was constitutional.

Less than a week after pushing through legislation to impose a 90 percent tax on the bonuses, the House Financial Services Committee prepared a considerably milder proposal that would let Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and financial regulators decide if employee compensation was "unreasonable" or "excessive."

The panel was expected to endorse the measure on Thursday, paving the way for a floor vote as early as next week.

The proposal, sponsored by Democratic Reps. Alan Grayson of Florida and James Himes of Connecticut, would not force employees of insurance giant AIG to give back money already paid to them. But it would empower the government to stop future payouts by financial institutions even if employees have been promised the money.

The bill would exempt firms willing to participate in a government-sponsored program aimed at buying up $1 trillion of bad debt, or "toxic assets," sitting on the books of major banks.

Republicans opposed the bill because they said it was too vague.

"Private investors need certainty that Washington will not change the rules of the game while the game is being played," said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the committee's top Republican.

But Democrats said it was necessary to protect taxpayer dollars. They pointed to a provision that would require Geithner to set standards to measure an employee's performance and the stability of a financial institution before bonuses are paid.

The justices' decision Monday ends lawsuits first filed in 2000. Federal appeals courts in New York and Washington threw out the complaints after Congress passed a law in 2005 giving the gun industry broad immunity against such lawsuits.

The city's lawsuit asked for no monetary damages. It had sought a court order for gun makers to more closely monitor those dealers who frequently sell guns later used to commit crimes.

But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law provides the gun industry with broad immunity from lawsuits brought by crime victims and violence-plagued cities. The Supreme Court refused to reconsider that decision.

The lawsuit was first brought in June 2000 while Rudy Giuliani was New York mayor. It was delayed due to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and because of similar litigation in the state courts.

The court ruling on Monday reverses a Vermont Supreme Court decision that threw out the assault conviction of Michael Brillon. The state court said Brillon's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial had been violated after he was jailed for three years and went through six defense attorneys before his trial for hitting his girlfriend in the face.

In an opinion by Justice Ruth Ginsburg, the court said taxpayers may pay the bills for a public defender, but the lawyer represents his client, not the state.

"Most of the delay that the Vermont Supreme Court attributed to the state must therefore be attributed to Brillon as delays caused by his counsel," Ginsburg said.

But the court also said the state high court should take another look at whether a breakdown in Vermont's public defender system played a role in Brillon's case and, if so, whether his rights were violated.

The New York state appeals panel issued a unanimous and unprecedented ruling in the case of Mark Speranza, 23, who left semen samples at the Repro Lab Inc. in July 1997 and signed a form directing that they be destroyed if he died. He wanted to be able to father a child if he survived his battle with cancer.

Following their son's death in January 1998, Mary and Antonio Speranza of Edison, N.J., told Repro's operator that they wanted a grandchild and wanted to save the sperm so a surrogate mother could be artificially inseminated.

The lab operator, Awilda Grillo, told the Speranzas their son deposited the specimens for his use only and the specimens had not been screened for donation to a member of the public, as required by state law.

The Speranzas paid Grillo storage fees and asked her to preserve the sperm specimens until a court could decide on custody.

State Supreme Court Justice Jane Solomon ruled that the law barred use of the sperm. She noted that the required screening, specifically a blood test of the donor, was now impossible since Mark Speranza was dead.