CHICAGO — Lawry's Restaurants Inc. has agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle a sex discrimination class action brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over the company's practice of hiring only women for food-server positions.

A male busboy complained in 2003 that the company refused to accept his application for an open food-server position at the chain's Las Vegas restaurant because he wasn't a woman. The EEOC filed charges in March 2006 in U.S. District Court for the Central District California alleging violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The California-based company, which operates nine restaurants in Nevada, Illinois, California and Texas, agreed to actively promote men into server positions and end its policy of considering only women for the jobs.

NEW YORK (AP) — Five immigrant men who were detained in roundups in New York and eventually deported following the Sept. 11 attacks have reached a $1.26 million settlement with the U.S. government.

The men were part of a lawsuit against the government over the roundups that put them in federal detention and the abuse they say they suffered while they were there. Two other plaintiffs are still part of the lawsuit.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the detainees, notified the court on Nov. 3 of the settlement.

The suit claimed that former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other officials violated the men's rights on the basis of their race and religion.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A California debt collection company has agreed to pay $2.55 million to settle a lawsuit brought by thousands of Pennsylvanians who claim they were wrongly led to believe they had to pay costly fees to avoid criminal charges for bouncing checks.

American Corrective Counseling Services Inc. admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement approved on Nov. 2 in bankruptcy court in Delaware.

The company sent out letters as recently as last winter purporting to be from various Pennsylvania district attorneys' offices to people who bounced checks.

The letters indicated that a crime had been committed, but that the check bouncers could clear up the matter by paying off the checks and various fees and by attending a financial accountability class.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik pleaded guilty on Nov. 5 to lying to the White House and to tax crimes in a deal that could send him to prison for 2 1/2 years.

Kerik, who was police commissioner when New York was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, was nominated to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security but withdrew as corruption allegations mounted. The lies to the White House occurred during that vetting process.

Prosecutors proposed that Kerik serve 27 to 33 months in prison. The judge said he would not be bound by the deal and warned Kerik that the maximum term is 61 years. Sentencing was set for Feb. 18.

NEW YORK — A former securities broker pleaded guilty to charges that he helped disgraced attorney Marc S. Dreier dupe hedge funds into making bogus investments.

Kosta Kovachev, 58, entered the plea to conspiracy to commit securities fraud in federal court in New York. He admitted aiding Dreier in a conspiracy to sell more than $100 million in fictitious securities to hedge funds in 2006 and 2007.

Kovachev faces up to 25 years in prison during a March 5 sentencing. Dreier is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to federal charges. Prosecutors say the pair posed as representatives of a real estate developer to sell phony promissory notes to hedge funds.

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors filed a plea agreement on Nov. 4 with a businessman and lawyer charged with lying to federal investigators about his knowledge of a fraudulent stock sale.

Robert Brown, a former partner at New York's Reitler Brown & Rosenblatt (now Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt), agreed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice for hiding what he knew about a "pump and dump" scheme involving an unnamed investment firm in Newport Beach, Calif.

According to documents filed in federal court in Washington, Brown helped an executive from the firm, as well as the chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of a Chinese company, fraudulently transfer more than $25 million through a series of shell companies into accounts they controlled.

Brown could face 10 to 16 months in prison and a $30,000 fine. He agreed to forfeit $275,000 in proceeds from his alleged illegal activities.

NEW YORK — A lawyer accused of soliciting his wife's murder cannot sue his divorce counsel for negotiating a settlement that he later decided was too generous.

In December 2003, just nine months after he was charged with soliciting his wife's murder, New York attorney Joseph Pascarella agreed to pay her $400,000 from his nonmarital property. Later, Pascarella claimed that his attorney, Richard S. Goldberg, failed to conduct necessary discovery and pressured him into agreeing to a settlement against his interests.

New York state trial judge Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix threw out the case on Nov. 3. Considering the circumstances, she said, the settlement reached "was one among reasonable courses of action."

MILAN, Italy (AP) — An Italian judge on Nov. 4 convicted 23 Americans in absentia of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric from a Milan street, in a landmark case involving the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's extraordinary rendition program.

Citing diplomatic immunity, Judge Oscar Magi told the Milan courtroom that he was acquitting three other Americans.

Former Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady drew eight years in prison. The other 22 convicted U.S. defendants each received a five-year sentence.

The Americans, all but one identified by prosecutors as CIA agents, were tried in absentia as subsequent Italian governments refused or ignored prosecutors' extradition request. They remain fugitives from Italian justice.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) — A Czech court struck down a complaint against the European Union reform treaty on Nov. 3, removing the proposed charter's last legal hurdle. President Václav Klaus signed it later last week under intensifying pressure.

The constitutional court's chief judge, Pavel Rychetský, said that the Lisbon Treaty, which has been ratified by other member nations, "does not violate the [Czech] constitution."

At the end of the ruling, Rychetský said that all formal obstacles for ratification "are removed."

The charter, which was bogged down in negotiations for almost a decade, has been ratified by all other 26 E.U. nations.

NEW YORK — A federal judge threw out a personal injury claim stemming from the 2003 Staten Island Ferry crash on the ground that the plaintiff most likely wasn't aboard the vessel.

Former security guard George Adde claimed that he suffered neck ­injuries and pain after the Andrew J. Barberi crashed into a concrete pier on Staten Island, N.Y., on Oct. 15, 2003.

U.S. District Judge Tucker Melancon dismissed the case, ruling that Adde failed to establish that he was even on the boat. Among other discrepancies, Adde suggested the accident occurred at the ferry's Manhattan landing.

According to city records, 171 cases have been filed against the city stemming from the Barberi accident, in which 11 people were killed.

So far, 161 cases have settled for a total of $66.87 million and three have been tried to conclusion for a total of $18.59 million.