LOS ANGELES (AP) – A doctor plead guilty in Los Angeles to administering diluted doses of medicine to patients with HIV, AIDS or hepatitis and improperly billing Medicare at least $350,000.

Dr. George Kooshian of La Quinta plead guilty Feb. 24 to federal charges of health care fraud.

His assistant, Virgil Opinion of Anaheim, previously plead guilty to participating in the scheme to administer watered-down medications and billed patients’ insurance companies for the full dose. The treatments were given at four offices in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Kooshian admitted that he and his assistant continued to bill for the treatments even after the patients were no longer taking the drugs.

Prosecutors say the government’s losses could be as much as $660,000.

Kooshian faces up to 50 years in prison when he is sentenced May 11.

BARTOW, Fla. (AP) – A Polk County man has been convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in the death of a 25-year-old gay man.

After nearly two days of deliberation, jurors returned a guilty verdict on Friday for 23-year-old Joseph Eli Bearden. Prosecutors had been pushing for a first-degree murder conviction. Bearden’s defense attorney called the verdict a partial victory because the death penalty is now off the table.

Bearden is one of two men charged with the 2007 murder of Ryan Skipper. Prosecutors say Bearden and 22-year-old William David Brown Jr. fatally stabbed Skipper and stole his Chevrolet Aveo. Brown is still awaiting trial.

Skipper’s death received much attention from gay-rights advocates, many of whom believe the murder was a hate crime.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – A measure that would bar same-sex couples from adopting children is sparking protests in Frankfort.

Opponents gathered in the Capitol on Wednesday to call on lawmakers to defeat the legislation. Their calls for “fairness” echoed through the marble hallways.

Louisville civil rights group The Fairness Campaign organized the rally against legislation that would bar gay, lesbian and unmarried heterosexual couples from adopting children or providing foster care.

The measure would allow children to be placed only in adoptive or foster homes with people who “are not cohabiting outside of a marriage that is legally valid in Kentucky.”

Chris Hartman, head of The Fairness Campaign, said the legislation unjustly rules out potentially good parents just because they’re not married in the traditional sense.

The legislation is Senate Bill 68.

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. (AP) – About half of New Jerseyans believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, according to a new poll.

The Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll, released Feb. 19, finds that 48 percent of New Jersey residents favor same-sex marriage, with 43 percent opposed.

Fifty percent oppose amending the New Jersey Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Forty-one percent favor such a ban.

New Jersey currently allows same-sex couples to join in civil unions, which offer the legal protections of marriage. Gay-rights advocates are pushing lawmakers to allow full marriage as Connecticut and Massachusetts do.

The poll was conducted by telephone with 402 New Jersey adults from Feb. 2-8 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

NEW YORK (AP) – A lawyer for one of two men accused of murdering an Ecuadorean immigrant in a hate crime said Saturday his client acted in self-defense, believing the victim was reaching for a gun during a scuffle.

Keith Phoenix, 28, was being held without bail after his arraignment Saturday on a charge of second-degree murder as a hate crime. He did not enter a plea.

Phoenix and co-defendant Hakim Scott, 25, are accused of shouting anti-Hispanic and anti-gay slurs as Jose Sucuzhanay and his brother walked arm in arm to keep warm on Dec. 7 in Brooklyn. Police said Scott hit Sucuzhanay with a beer bottle, and Phoenix beat him with an aluminum baseball bat.

Phoenix’s lawyer, Jay Schwitzman, said his client and Scott were sitting in Phoenix’s sports utility vehicle when Sucuzhanay and his brother kicked the vehicle. Scott then began fighting with the brothers, Schwitzman said.

The lawyer said after the arraignment that Phoenix was protecting himself and trying to break up the fracas, believing Sucuzhanay was going for a weapon in his waistband.

“It was not a hate crime. I know the police have a different version,” Schwitzman said.

Police said there was no information to support Schwitzman’s account.

Phoenix was found hiding Friday in a suburban New York apartment. Police had released a video showing him grinning as he paid a bridge toll shortly after Sucuzhanay, 31, was brutally attacked.

Schwitzman said Phoenix is sorry for what happened to Sucuzhanay.

“He’s remorseful,” the lawyer said. “It’s a serious matter. He’s not laughing.”

Scott has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder as a hate crime.

If convicted, the defendants could face 25 years to life in prison.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Supporters of a ban on same-sex marriage in North Carolina will lobby the Legislature for the second time in a week on Tuesday.

A Christian conservative group called Return America has scheduled a “Stand Up for Traditional Marriage” rally in Downtown Raleigh. A similar outdoor event attracted thousands in 2007.

North Carolina law defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. But social conservatives want specific language added to the state constitution, arguing that a voter-approved amendment banning same-sex marriage would push back court challenges. Thirty states have such bans.

Gay-rights supporters argue the state shouldn’t write discrimination into the constitution.

Religious leaders and lawmakers held a news conference last week promoting the amendment.

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) – Three men are facing hate-crime charges after allegedly throwing rocks into a gay bar, injuring two men, police said.

According to witnesses, one man held open the door to Robert’s Lafitte bar Sunday night while the other two hurled two rocks, one of them weighing 4 pounds, into the bar. The rocks were apparently being used as doorstops.

A 57-year-old man was treated at a hospital for a gash on the back of his head. Another man was hit in the jaw but refused treatment.

Witnesses chased the three men and provided descriptions to police. The arrests were made after a neighborhood sweep, police said.

Lawrence Lewis III, 20; his brother Lawrneil Lewis, 18; and Alejandro Sam Gray, 17, all of Galveston, were being held Tuesday on aggravated assault charges. Bond was set at $120,000 each.

The district attorney’s office authorized a hate-crime “enhancement” to the charges because the intent was to randomly assault the victims based on their sexual preference, police spokesperson Lt. D.J. Alvarez told the Galveston County Daily News.

The hate-crime designation allows a second-degree assault charge to be elevated to a first-degree offense, increasing the potential sentence, Alvarez said.

No information was available on whether the suspects had attorneys, a jail official said.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Businesses in Utah will continue to be allowed to fire someone for being gay.

A House committee voted down a bill 5-8 Feb. 18 that would have made discriminating against someone in the workplace based on sexual orientation or gender identity illegal.

House Bill 267 also would have made it illegal for landlords to discriminate against gay and transgender people.

Bill sponsor Rep. Christine Johnson, D-Salt Lake City, said the bill would not create hiring quotas and was in no way “inching toward” legalizing same-sex marriage.

“This is not a slippery slope,” she said. “This is a plateau.”

Under current state law, an individual can be fired just for being perceived as gay regardless of sexual orientation or identity.

Rep. Jackie Biskupski, D-Salt Lake City, said failing to have laws that would let individuals have their dignity at work and at home is “mind-boggling.”

Sue Rice, a small business owner in Salt Lake City, said that she’s “had it” that other businesses are able to discriminate against individuals based on such stereotypes.

“I share civil rights with my employees, and I think that all business owners should do it too,” she said.

Rep. Michael Morely, R-Spanish Fork, said that creating laws for “protected groups” take away rights from those who aren’t in such groups.

By creating more protected groups through legislation, Morely said that instead of “being innocent until proven guilty,” landlords and employers would be “guilty until proven innocent.”

A version of H.B. 267 failed to make it out of committee last year as well.

The bill was part of a package of bills called the Common Ground Initiative being promoted by the gay-rights group Equality Utah that Gov. Jon Huntsman supports. This is the second bill in the initiative that has died in a committee.