NEW YORK - CBS fired Don Imus from his radio show Thursday, the finale to a stunning fall for one of the nation's most prominent broadcasters.

Imus initially was given a two-week suspension, to start Monday, for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" on the air last week, but outrage continued to grow and advertisers bolted from his programs.

"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. "That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."

Rutgers women's basketball team spokeswoman Stacey Brann said the team did not have an immediate comment on Imus' firing but would be issuing a statement later Thursday evening.

Time Magazine once named the cantankerous broadcaster as one of the 25 Most Influential People in America, and he was a member of the National Broadcaster Hall of Fame.

But Imus found himself at the center of a storm after his comments. Protests ensued, and one by one, sponsors pulled their ads from Imus' show. On Wednesday, MSNBC dropped the simulcast of Imus' show.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson met with Moonves to advocate Imus' removal, promising a rally outside CBS headquarters Saturday and an effort to persuade more advertisers to abandon Imus.

Sumner Redstone, chairman of the CBS Corp. board and its chief stockholder, told Newsweek that he had expected Moonves to "do the right thing," although it wasn't clear what he thought that was.

The news came down in the middle of Imus' Radiothon, which has raised more than $40 million since 1990 for good causes. The Radiothon had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned that he lost his job.

"This may be our last Radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million," Imus cracked at the start of the event.

Best Buy 'Geek' accused of taping showering woman with cell phone

POMONA, Calif. (AP) - A 22-year-old woman and her mother are suing Best Buy and its "Geek Squad" computer repair team for dispatching a technician who they say videotaped the daughter taking a shower.

Sarah Vasquez and her mother Natalie Fornaciari filed a Superior Court lawsuit Wednesday claiming technician Hao Kuo Chi, 26, placed his cellular telephone in Vasquez's bathroom during a service call March 4 in the family's Walnut home and recorded her showering.

The suit also claims the phone was found in the bedroom of Vasquez's 13-year-old sister, Kelly Rocha.

"I couldn't believe this was happening to me," Vasquez said. "I felt embarrassed and dirty because he did this when I was naked."

Chi was arrested and later charged with misdemeanor counts of using a camera to view a person without consent and annoying or molesting a child under 18, said Sgt. Bob Skidlarski of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. A court hearing will be held May 3.

Best Buy officials released a statement saying the company learned of the lawsuit shortly after it was announced Wednesday.

"Obviously, we intend to cooperate fully with any investigation into this matter," the statement said.

Chi was at the family's home for a scheduled appointment, according to the lawsuit.

Vasquez claims she noticed a cell phone positioned on her bathroom sink when she exited the shower. A red light on it was blinking, she said. Vasquez went to tell her sister, but when they returned the phone was gone. Kelly later found it in her bedroom.

The sisters removed the memory chip and took it to a Verizon store to see what was on it. They alerted their stepfather, who reported Chi to police.

"I was shocked and felt angry and upset for my daughters when I learned what was on the video," Fornaciari said.

The family is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for alleged fraud, negligent misrepresentation and hiring, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

A telephone listing could not be located for Chi in Walnut or the surrounding area. The plaintiffs' attorney, Gloria Allred, said she did not know if he had a lawyer.

Defense: Preacher's wife was abused, accidentally shot husband

SELMER, Tenn. (AP) - A preacher's wife was trying to protect her young daughter from her abusive husband when she pointed a shotgun and accidentally shot him, her attorney said in opening statements Thursday.

Mary Winkler only intended to hold her husband at gunpoint to force him to talk about his personal problems after an incident involving their 1-year-old daughter, Breanna, defense attorney Steve Farese said.

"The morning he did what he did to Breanna, she was going to get his attention - with the very things he had always threatened her with," Farese said. He said Matthew Winkler had threatened his wife with a gun many times.

But a prosecutor said that after Mary Winkler was arrested she told police her husband was "a mighty fine person."

"The state will give you evidence to show that this was no accident and that this was a premeditated act because of things that had been happening of which Mary Winkler was in control," Assistant District Attorney Walt Freeland told the jury in his opening statement.

Freeland said bank managers were closing in on a check kiting scheme involving Mary Winkler and that she wanted to conceal it from her husband.

He said the jury would hear that Mary Winkler, 33, was the one who controlled the family's finances and that she told investigators after the shooting "she guessed that her ugly just came out."

"'Why?' That was the last word spoken on this earth by Matthew Winkler," Freeland said. "And his last word was addressed to the person he thought he could trust, his wife."

Freeland said Mary Winkler was caught up in a swindle known as an advance-fee fraud, or the "Nigerian scam," in which victims are told that a sweepstakes prize or some other riches are waiting for them if they send in money to cover the processing expenses.

Bank managers told Mary Winkler that she needed to come to the bank with her husband to talk about some suspicious checks. They told her if she didn't come in by March 23 - one day after the shooting - the bank would turn the case over to the authorities, Freeland said.

The defense attorney said Mary Winkler was in charge of the finances only because she did everything her husband told her. He described her as a woman who had been abused verbally, emotionally and physically.

"Matthew and Mary Winkler had what appeared to everyone - those on the outside - to have had a marriage made in heaven. But behind closed doors it was a living hell," Farese told the jury. "She lived a life where she walked on egg shells."

Mary Winkler was her husband's "whipping boy," Farese said. "He didn't like the way she talked, he didn't like the way she walked.

"She wasn't perfect, and she had to be perfect to be a preacher's wife."

Farese said Mary Winkler did not know how to load or fire a shotgun, and that she was afraid he would grab it from her.

"The gun discharged," Farese said. "Was it an accident? She'll tell the truth as to what happened."

Mary Winkler, who has worn a cross around her neck in court every day this week, began crying when the prosecutor described how the shotgun blast ripped through Matthew Winkler's body.

The 31-year-old minister was found fatally wounded from a shotgun blast at the parsonage of his Fourth Street Church of Christ in Selmer in March 2006. His wife was arrested one day later some 340 miles away on the Alabama coast with their three young daughters.

Matthew Winkler's father, Dan Winkler, took the witness stand Thursday and said he talked to his daugther-in-law after her arrest. "I told her I wished I could take the handcuffs off and I could give her a big bear hug," he said.

He said Christians have a duty to forgive, but Mary Winkler has never asked for forgiveness. He and his wife now have custody of the three children and have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Mary Winkler.

Matthew Winkler came from a long line of Church of Christ ministers. He met his wife at Freed-Hardeman University, a Church of Christ-affiliated school in Henderson where Matthew's father was an adjunct professor, and they married in 1996.

Churches of Christ do not consider themselves a denomination since every congregation is independently governed by a group of church elders. They generally believe the Bible should be interpreted literally and that baptism is essential for salvation.

The trial could last up to two weeks. The jury - including a Baptist minister and woman who said she had been a victim of domestic abuse - will spend that time sequestered in a small-town motel without television, radio or cell phones.

Oscar-winning art director George Jenkins dies in Santa Monica

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) - Hollywood art director George Jenkins, who won an Oscar for his work in the 1976 film "All the President's Men" and was nominated for 1979's "The China Syndrome," has died. He was 98.

Jenkins died of heart failure April 6 at his Santa Monica home, his granddaughter Wylie Griffin said Thursday.

Jenkins designed and lighted sets on Broadway during the 1940s, gaining prominence for his work on "I Remember Mama" in 1944, before heading to Hollywood at the behest of producer Samuel Goldwyn.

Jenkins' first work as a Hollywood art director was on "The Best Years of Our Lives," director William Wyler's 1946 drama about returning World War II veterans that won the Academy Award for best picture.

He went on to work on more than 30 motion pictures as an art director or production designer, including "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," "The Bishop's Wife," "Wait Until Dark," "The Subject Was Roses," "Klute," "1776," "The Paper Chase," "The Parallax View," "Funny Lady," "Comes a Horseman," "Starting Over" and "Sophie's Choice."

He won an Academy Award for best art direction/set decoration, along with set decorator George Gaines, for "All the President's Men," based on the Watergate scandal book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

"It was absolutely faithful; he had re-created it down to the trash on our desks," Bernstein told the Los Angeles Times this week. "It was a remarkable achievement."

Jenkins was also the art director for director Arthur Penn's 1962 movie version of "The Miracle Worker." They had worked together on the Broadway version.

"From the first time I worked with him, we understood each other," Penn said. "So we went on to many, many projects together (including the movies 'Mickey One' and 'Night Moves')," Penn said.

Griffin said Jenkins was born in Baltimore on Nov. 19, 1908, (some sources list his year of birth as 1911), attended architectural school at the University of Pennsylvania, then designed stage productions for a Philadelphia theatrical group.

Jenkins was divorced from his first wife, Barbara. His second wife, television producer Phyllis Adams Jenkins, died in 2004.

Besides his granddaughter, who lives in Santa Monica, Jenkins is survived by his daughter from his first marriage, Jane Jenkins Dumais of New Hampshire. A private funeral was planned.

Kurt Vonnegut, influential author of 'Slaughterhouse-Five' and 'Cat's Cradle,' dies at 84

NEW YORK (AP) - In books such as "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle," and "Hocus Pocus," Kurt Vonnegut mixed the bitter and funny with a touch of the profound.

Vonnegut, regarded by many critics as a key influence in shaping 20th-century American literature, died Wednesday at 84. He had suffered brain injuries after a recent fall at his Manhattan home, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.

In a statement, Norman Mailer hailed Vonnegut as "a marvelous writer with a style that remained undeniably and imperturbably his own. … I would salute him - our own Mark Twain."

"He was sort of like nobody else," said another fellow author, Gore Vidal. "Kurt was never dull."

Vonnegut's works - more than a dozen novels plus short stories, essays and plays - contained elements of social commentary, science fiction and autobiography. Hours after his death, "Slaughterhouse-Five" had jumped to the top 10 on Amazon.com, while "Cat's Cradle" and the nonfiction "A Man Without a Country" had reached the top 40.

Vonnegut's longtime friend and manager, Donald Farber, said there would be no public memorial, only a private gathering of family and friends. He also said that other Vonnegut books were likely to come out, but declined to offer specifics.

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim ("Slaughterhouse-Five") and Eliot Rosewater ("God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater") as transparent vehicles for his points of view.

Vonnegut lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.

"He was a man who combined a wicked sense of humor and sort of steady moral compass, who was always sort of looking at the big picture of the things that were most important," said Joel Bleifuss, editor of In These Times, a liberal magazine based in Chicago that featured Vonnegut articles.

Like "Catch-22," by Vonnegut's friend Joseph Heller, "Slaughterhouse-Five" was a World War II novel embraced by opponents of the Vietnam War, linking a so-called "good war" to the unpopular conflict of the 1960s and '70s.

Some of Vonnegut's books were banned and burned for alleged obscenity. He took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers' aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The American Humanist Association, which promotes individual freedom, rational thought and scientific skepticism, made him its honorary president.

Vonnegut said the villains in his books were never individuals, but culture, society and history, which he said were making a mess of the planet.

"I like to say that the 51st state is the state of denial," he told The Associated Press in 2005. "It's as though a huge comet were heading for us and nobody wants to talk about it. We're just about to run out of petroleum and there's nothing to replace it."

Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life, and in 1984, he attempted suicide with pills and alcohol, joking later about how he botched the job.

"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations," Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.

Vonnegut was born on Nov. 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, and studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the Army. His mother killed herself just before he left for Germany during World War II, where he was quickly taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He was being held in Dresden when Allied bombs firebombed the German city.

"The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am," Vonnegut wrote in "Fates Worse Than Death," his 1991 autobiography of sorts.

But he spent 23 years struggling to write about the ordeal, which he survived by huddling with other POW's inside an underground meat locker labeled slaughterhouse-five.

The novel that emerged, in which Pvt. Pilgrim is transported from Dresden by time-traveling aliens, was published at the height of the Vietnam War, and solidified his reputation as an iconoclast.

After World War II, he reported for Chicago's City News Bureau, then did public relations for General Electric, a job he loathed. He wrote his first novel, "Player Piano," in 1951, followed by "The Sirens of Titan," "Canary in a Cat House" and "Mother Night," making ends meet by selling Saabs on Cape Cod.

Critics ignored him at first, then denigrated his deliberately bizarre stories and disjointed plots as haphazardly written science fiction. But his novels became cult classics, especially "Cat's Cradle" in 1963, in which scientists create "ice-nine," a crystal that turns water solid and destroys the Earth.

He retired from novel writing in his later years, but continued to publish short articles. He had a best-seller in 2005 with "A Man Without a Country," a collection of his nonfiction, including jabs at the Bush administration ("upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography") and the uncertain future of the planet.

He called the book's success "a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life."

Vonnegut, who had homes in Manhattan and the Hamptons in New York, adopted his sister's three young children after she died. He also had three children of his own with his first wife, Jane Marie Cox, and later adopted a daughter, Lily, with his second wife, Krementz.

Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he'd prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.

"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon," Vonnegut told the AP.

"My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I'll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children."

Associated Press writers Michael Warren, Hillel Italie and Chelsea Carter contributed to this report.

Police seek help identifying man who reportedly asked nannies if they wanted to sell babies

ENCINO - Police are asking for the public's help in identifying a heavyset white man in his 40s who reportedly asked at least two nannies at Encino Park this week whether they wanted to sell the babies they were caring for.

"The potential for danger is there, so we need to get this guy in custody," Officer Jason Lee, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman, told the Daily News.

Lee said a witness described the man as being about 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing 200 to 250 pounds and wearing a yellow shirt and jeans.

The man reportedly approached a nanny near the swing sets at the park at 16953 Ventura Blvd. at about 2:30 p.m Monday "and asked if he could buy the baby," Lee told the Daily News.

The next day, the same nanny saw the man approach another nanny caring for a different baby, according to the Daily News, and when she asked the other nanny what he had said, the other nanny said he wanted to buy a baby.

Anyone with information on the man was urged to call the Los Angeles Police Department at 1-877-LAWFULL, a 24-hour toll free number.

-- North County Times wire services

Nation's top law enforcement officials join 1,000 people mourning FBI agent killed in N.J.

POTTSTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III arrived Thursday to pay their respects to an FBI agent who was shot to death, possibly by his own colleague, as he chased a group of bank robbery suspects.

The nation's top law enforcement officials were escorted inside an arts center as hundreds of mourners waited in a line stretching down the drive.

Inside, at least a thousand mourners filed past the closed, flag-draped casket containing the body of Special Agent Barry Lee Bush. Next to the casket, surrounded by flowers, was a table with nearly a dozen framed pictures of Bush and his family.

"We would like to thank all of our neighbors, friends and the entire law enforcement community for their unbelievable support and continued expressions of sympathy," Bush's family said in a statement.

Bush, 52, was fatally shot April 5 while he and other agents tried to capture a group of suspected bank robbers in Readington Township, N.J. The FBI said Bush may have been accidentally shot by another agent during the confrontation outside a PNC bank.

Mueller was scheduled to deliver the eulogy for Bush, who played a key role in several high-profile cases during his 19-year FBI career. He was the 51st FBI agent killed in the line of duty.

"He had the demeanor of the type of guy that would be an FBI agent," said retired Pottstown Sgt. Paul H. Campbell, who was Bush's supervisor for a year when Bush was a patrolman in the 1980s.

An internal investigation into the shooting is under way. The FBI said Bush may have been struck when a fellow agent's weapon discharged accidentally. The FBI has declined to provide specific details.

However, two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that the shooter may have mistaken Bush for a suspect. The officials spoke on the condition that they remain anonymous because they were not authorized to talk about the investigation.

Bush, who lived near Easton, Pa., was born in Pottstown and was a 1972 graduate of Pottstown High School. He is survived by a wife and two children.

Retired schoolteacher killed in standoff between ex-husband, police in Indiana

VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) - A retired grade-school teacher was killed by an officer's stray bullet during a standoff between her ex-husband and officers, authorities said.

Police said the deadly bullet apparently ricocheted off something before hitting the woman, Marilyn B. Stephens, 74, in the chest. The shooting took place at the home she she apparently still shared with her ex-husband, Timothy P. Stephens, 55.

Police went to the home in this northwestern Indiana city on Tuesday to check reports that he was threatening her. After she opened the door, he came out waving a gun and threatening her and the officers, police said.

Police tried to move her away from the house. Officer Dan Koepke, who was behind a car in the driveway, fired twice toward the home, according to police.

A forensics team was investigating how the bullet struck Marilyn Stephens, who was not standing in its path, authorities said.

Investigators found evidence that a bullet also struck a vehicle in the driveway.

Timothy Stephens ducked back into the home unharmed and later surrendered, police said.

He was being held Thursday at Porter County Jail, booked on charges of domestic battery, criminal confinement and intimidation, said Porter County police spokesman Sgt. Timothy Emmons. Jail officials did not know Thursday whether he had an attorney.

Marilyn Stephens taught third grade in nearby Portage for 28 years before retiring in 1994.

"She was a very caring teacher and really worked well with her students," former colleague Penny Rea said. "Even after she retired, she still substitute taught. She wanted to go back and help the kids."

Man accused of shooting Texas first-grader says he was firing at backyard target

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A construction worker accused of fatally shooting a 7-year-old boy bouncing on a nearby trampoline told officers he was firing at a wooden target and had no idea anyone had been hurt.

Jose Barrera Espitia, 37, lives two houses away from the where the boy was playing with his cousins Tuesday. He was charged with second-degree manslaughter in the boy's shooting and remained jailed Thursday on $275,000 bond.

First-grader Daniel Galicia died less than an hour after he was shot in the back in rural Hays County, 25 miles south of Austin.

Hays County allows people to fire weapons in their yards, but the sheriff's department said this case was reckless. "Houses in this area are pretty close together, and if you are shooting the wrong direction, something can happen," spokesman Leroy Opiela said.

Espitia told police he couldn't see the boy from his yard and thought all his shots had hit his wooden target.

His 16-year-old daughter, Fernanda, said her father was crushed when he learned the boy had been shot. It was an accident, she said. "My dad would never do anything like that."

Woman convicted in first S.D. capital murder case with female defendant

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - A woman accused of killing and dismembering her former lover's friend was convicted Thursday of premeditated murder and could become the state's first female defendant to face the death penalty.

Daphne Wright, 43, cried as the verdict was read.

The same jury that found her guilty will consider whether to sentence her to death by lethal injection.

Prosecutors said Wright was jealous of Darlene VanderGiesen, 42, because of her friendship with Wright's former lover. The jealousy turned to rage that drove Wright to kidnap VanderGiesen, kill her, cut apart the body with a chain saw and burn it, according to the prosecution.

Prosecutors accuse Daphne Wright, 43, of abducting, killing and dismembering Darlene VanderGiesen, 42, in February 2006. Remains were found in a Minnesota ditch and a Sioux Falls landfill. All three women were deaf and knew each other through the deaf community.

"This is not a game. This is real life. And Darlene VanderGiesen is really dead," State Attorney Dave Nelson said. "This defendant really killed her. And that's what all of the evidence in this case proves."

Traci Smith, one of Wright's public defense lawyers, said prosecutors provided no evidence from the day VanderGiesen disappeared to prove kidnapping or murder, and instead focused on the dismemberment.

"Take yourself outside the emotions of the chain saw. This is a sad case. Darlene VanderGiesen died, and no verdict you bring is going to bring Darlene back," she said. "The state wants you to be distracted from the important aspects of this case: What happened on February 1st, 2006?"

Wright was found guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree premeditated murder and kidnapping.

Minnesota jail guard suspended after inmate is hit with a Bible

MANKATO, Minn. (AP) - A jail guard has been suspended after allegedly thumping an inmate with a Bible.

James Lee Sheppard, 56, has been charged with two gross misdemeanors for allegedly swatting a Blue Earth County Jail inmate with the book, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against steel bars on Feb. 8, according to the criminal complaint.

A video shows a guard entering the cell of inmate Jeremy Hansen, 26. The guard then takes Hansen's Bible and strikes him in the side of the face with the book. The two exchange words as the guard walks away, said Mankato Police Officer Allen Schmidt who watched the video.

The rest of the confrontation was not captured on video because of an object obstructing the camera. But the complaint states that Sheppard walked back toward Hansen, grabbed him and pushed him into the cell bars.

Dennis McCoy, Blue Earth County administrator, said Sheppard was the first to report the confrontation. "He knew he violated policy and, to his credit, he turned himself in," McCoy said.

Sheppard declined to comment to The Associated Press. He referred calls to St. Paul attorney Brent LaSalle, who said Thursday that he had not been retained by Sheppard and so couldn't speak on the guard's behalf.

Sheppard, who was not jailed, is on leave pending further investigation.

He is scheduled to appear in Brown County court April 26 on charges of mistreatment of an inmate and misconduct by a public officer.

Kansas governor signs funeral picketing legislation; church says it won't affect protests

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Thursday signed a law forcing an anti-gay pastor and his followers to keep their distance when protesting military funerals, but the church claims the new rules will have no effect on its demonstrations.

Members of the Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, have picketed burials around the country of U.S. troops killed in combat, claiming their deaths are God's punishment for a nation harboring homosexuals.

"It's disgraceful for anyone to try and disrupt a funeral," Sebelius said during a Statehouse ceremony. "It is unfortunate this reprehensible practice has been exported to other states."

The law says protesters can't be within 150 feet of a funeral one hour before, during or two hours after the end of the service. Violators would face up to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail. It also makes it illegal to obstruct any public street or sidewalk and allows family members to sue if they feel protesters defamed the deceased.

The law will not take effect until the Kansas Supreme Court or a federal court upholds it as constitutional. Legislators added that provision to lessen concerns that Phelps and his followers would file a legal challenge, win and collect attorney fees from the state.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, the church's attorney, called the new law "absolutely worthless."

"We are always more than 300 feet from the funeral site and always leave before the funeral starts," said Phelps-Roper, daughter of Fred Phelps. "There is nothing about the law that has anything to do with us."

At least 32 states have enacted laws restricting funeral protests, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Miss. Supreme Court upholds conviction of former KKK leader in 1964 civil rights killings

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the manslaughter convictions of former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen in the slayings of three civil rights workers in 1964.

Killen, 82, was convicted on June 21, 2005 - exactly 41 years after Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were killed. He was sentenced to three consecutive 60-year prison terms.

The three victims, all young men, had been helping blacks to register to vote in Neshoba County when they were killed. Their bodies were found two months later buried in an earthen dam.

Witnesses testified that Killen helped plan the slayings. The case was portrayed in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

Three plead guilty to state counts in Alabama church fires, get 2 years in prison each

CENTREVILLE, Ala. (AP) - Three former college students accused of setting a string of church fires last year pleaded guilty to state arson and burglary charges Thursday, three days after they were sentenced on related federal counts.

Matthew Cloyd, 21, Benjamin Moseley, 20, and Russell Lee DeBusk Jr., 20, were sentenced to two years each in state prison, to be served after their federal sentences.

Cloyd and Moseley each face eight years in federal prison. DeBusk was involved in only some of the fires and was sentenced by a federal judge Monday to seven years.

Their round of pleas on Thursday resolve state charges in only five of the church fires, those in Bibb County, about 45 miles south of Birmingham, that were started Feb. 3, 2006. The defendants still face charges related to four other fires a few days later in three counties near the Mississippi line.

The fires had terrorized church-centered communities for weeks last year.

Investigators arrested the three men after linking tire tracks from the scene to the tires on a sport-utility vehicle driven by Cloyd.

All three former Birmingham-Southern College students pleaded guilty to state arson and burglary charges. Moseley also pleaded guilty to animal cruelty for shooting a cow during what they have described as a night of drunken joy riding.

None of the men spoke in court Thursday, but defense lawyers reminded the judge of apologies each had made in federal court Monday.

"I'm having a hard time balancing justice with forgiveness and mercy," the Rev. Duane Schliep, pastor of the destroyed Rehobeth Baptist Church, said Thursday. "I guess it is something I will struggle with the rest of my life."

In the federal case, the defendants also were ordered to pay a total of $3.1 million in restitution to the churches. Following their release, each must perform 300 hours of community service work for the congregations.