Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today promised Russia will continue to support the legal efforts of Viktor Bout and pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, both of whom were ensnared in U.S. DEA stings abroad and brought to the U.S. for prosecution. Bout is on trial now in New York for terror related charges arising from an alleged arms trafficking deal. Yaroshenko was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in an African drug sting, and is appealing.

Our citizens may be certain that our country will not leave them in an unjust situation…These cases have attracted wide publicity,” Lavrov said in a radio interview.

“We are actively supporting both [Bout and Yaroshenko], as well as other Russian citizens who find themselves in similar situations…This support includes hiring experienced lawyers if necessary,” the minister said.

Lavrov also blasted the U.S. for the way it handled the cases: [More...]

Earlier, it was reported that the DEA informant in the Viktor Bout case was paid $1.5 million. Scratch that, it was $8 million and rising. Former Guatemalan soldier and drug dealer turned DEA informant, Carlos Sagastume, testified yesterday in the trial of accused arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Sagastume testified his supplier in Guatemala got busted and Mexican police took him to Mexico, where he was freed after paying a $60,000 "ransom." He then contacted the U.S. embassy offering to be an informant for the DEA. The DEA brought him to the U.S. in 1998 and he's been working as a paid informant for them ever since. He's made over 150 cases and says it's the best paying employment he's ever had.

He testified that he has been paid $1.6 million by the DEA and $7.5 million by the State Department. He said he raked in $250,000 from the Bout case alone, and hopes to earn more money from the case.

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Bump and Update: Raj Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years, far less than the 19.5 to 24.5 years sought by the Government. The judge did consider his failing health (saying he's likely to need a kidney transplant and suffers from advanced diabetes) and charitable works, but also bumped his guidelines for both having a supervisory role and obstruction of justice in a related civil proceeding (discussed below.)

The Wall. St. Journal reports the judge denied Rajaratman's request for an appeal bond but allowed him to voluntarily surrender to the designated prison on November 28, so he wasn't taken into custody.(See below, the Government did not object to a voluntary surrender of 21 days.)

According to the Times and other media sources, it's the longest sentence ever imposed for insider trading. Raj will serve 85% of the sentence since there is no parole in the federal system, and everyone gets the same amount of good time -- 54 days a year after the first year. [More...]

Dominique Strauss-Kahn will not be prosecuted in France for an alleged attempted rape on journalist Tristane Bannon.

The Paris prosecutor's office on Thursday dropped an investigation into a writer's claim that Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her, citing lack of sufficient proof, though it said the former IMF chief admitted to a lesser charge of sexual assault.

The prosecutor said there was evidence of sexual aggression but that charge was beyond the statute of limitations.

The statute of limitations on sexual aggression is three years; on the greater charge of attempted rape, it's 10 years. While DSK admitted the aggression, he denied that he attempted to rape Bannon.

Testimony began today in the trial of Viktor Bout (background here.)

The first government witness today was William Brown, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who managed the investigation. The three undercover sources used to make contact with Bout and his associates and pretend to be FARC members were paid almost $1 million for their work on the case, he testified.

Bout, like other recent defendants in New York's Southern District kidnapped from foreign countries and brought to the U.S. for trial, lost his motion to dismiss the case based on manufactured jurisdiction. The judge granted his motion to suppress his statements to the DEA following his arrest in Thailand. [More...]

Attorney General Eric Holder (DOJ press release here) has announced criminal charges against Iranian agents for plotting to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. The plot was "conceived" in Iran by the Quds force, part of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps." A DEA informant was involved. Here's the Complaint. Via ABC News:

The case, called Operation Red Coalition, began in May when an Iranian-American from Corpus Christi, Texas, approached a US informant seeking the help of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, according to counter-terrorism officials. The Iranian-American thought he was dealing with a member of a Mexican drug organisation, according to documents.

Iran calls it a propaganda campaign. The FBI press release is here. [More...]

Raffaele Sollecito, the co-defendant of Amanda Knox who was also acquitted of murder this week by the appeals court, alleges the police treated him violently and with coercion after his arrest. Amanda Knox has said in the past she was assaulted and browbeaten by police.

Ms Knox has also claimed that she was assaulted during questioning and that the verbal and physical intimidation caused her to wrongly claim that an innocent man, the bar owner Patrick Lumumba, committed the killing. [More...]

Claudio Pratillo Hellmann, one of the two judges advising the jury suggested in an interview today that perhaps Amanda and Raffaelle know who was involved in Mereditih Kercher's killing.

Update: Amanda Knox's nightmare is over. She's free. Her murder conviction is overturned. Only the slander charge against police was upheld. Raffaele Sollecito was also freed. Here's Amanda listening to the verdict, after the verdict is announced, being led out of court, and the crowd outside which was cheering. One half hour later, they are still outside. Amanda will soon leave this prison.

Update: 1:45 pm: Amanda is seated now. She looks as nervous as she must feel. She's surrounded by police. [More...]

Here's Johnny Cochran: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit...." (4 min. 30 seconds in). Another great line: "They allowed this investigation to be infected by a dishonest and corrupt detective."

You can watch OJ try on the gloves here.

If you are owed money by Full-Tilt Poker, which the Government says is a Ponzi scheme, don't look for recovery any time soon. Today, the Alderney Gambling Control Commission on the British Channel Islands revoked its license, jeopardizing any payback plan. And, the Department of Justice issued this statement today:

United States v. Pokerstars et al., 11 Civ. 2564 (LBS) (Full Tilt Poker information)

...By way of background, in April of 2011, this Office entered into a domain-name use agreement with Full Tilt Poker. That agreement, among other things, expressly authorized Full Tilt Poker to return player funds to players. However, as the September 22 amended complaint alleges, Full Tilt Poker did not in fact have player funds on hand to return to players. Instead, the amended complaint alleges that Full Tilt Poker had, among other things, (a) transferred significant amounts of players’ real money deposits to principals of the company, while (b) allowing many players to continue to gamble, and “win” and “lose,” with phantom credits in their player accounts.

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Bump and Update: Here's a trial primer. Here's a rundown on the jurors. You can watch the live stream of the trial here.

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Two years after Michael Jackson's death, opening arguments begin tomorrow for Dr. Conrad Murray, charged with manslaughter for allegedly administering a deadly amount of propofol to Jackson and then failing to properly monitor him. [More...]

Dominique Strauss-Kahn didn't have dipolmatic immunity in the criminal case with the New York hotel maid, but are civil cases different? Strauss-Kahn filed a motion to dismiss Nafassitou Diallo's lawsuit today saying the court lacked jurisdiction over him. The NY Daily News reports:

in the court papers, Strauss-Kahn's lawyers argued that a different standard, the UN Specialized Agencies Convention, grants the top official of international organizations like the IMF "absolute diplomatic immunity."

That the United States never signed on the Specialized Agencies Convention is of no matter, the lawyers argued, because so many other countries have signed it. It has now "achieved the status of what is known as customary international law," they said.

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