The reputed underboss of the New England mob has pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges in a plea deal that will send him to prison for six years.

Carmen "The Cheeseman" DiNunzio pleaded guilty Wednesday to bribing an undercover FBI agent posing as a state highway department official in an attempt to win a $6 million contract on the Big Dig highway project.

DiNunzio is expected to plead guilty next week to separate state gambling and extortion charges.

Prosecutors have agreed to wrap both cases together under one plea agreement and to recommend a sentence of six years in federal prison. Sentencing was scheduled for Sept. 24.

Authorities say the 51-year-old DiNunzio has been underboss of the New England branch of the Mafia since 2004.

Judge Michael Kupersmith issued the sentence to 51-year-old Louise Desnoyers (day-noy-AY') on Wednesday in Grand Isle County after hearing her apology to family, friends and the court.

Desnoyers pleaded no contest this year in the death of Nicholas Desnoyers-Langlois. She had originally pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

The judge says he determined that Desnoyers knew what she was doing when she drowned the 8-year-old boy in August 2006.

She told authorities she held her son under water so he wouldn't have to suffer through her impending breakup with his father.

Phoenix-based Mesa had said that the termination of the contract, if successful, would cripple its airline.

Mesa said last year that the contract amounted to $20 million in monthly revenue for the parent company, or about 20 percent of its total sales for 2007.

Mesa won a preliminary court injunction from the federal district court in Atlanta to block the contract termination, and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, also in Atlanta, affirmed that decision Wednesday.

Delta says it will continue to fight to preserve its right to terminate the contract.

Leslie Schuler, 36, is accused of repeatedly beating Nathaniel Turner, culminating in a brutal assault on June 21, when he's alleged to have slammed the boy's head into a wall so hard it left a dent.

The boy was declared brain dead two days later.

Schuler, of Worcester, originally was charged with multiple counts of assault, but a murder charge was added when the boy died on Saturday after being removed from a hospital ventilator.

A not guilty plea was entered on Schuler's behalf during his arraignment in Central District Court.

The boy's mother, Alicia Turner, sobbed as she watched the arraignment from the front row of the courtroom with relatives including Christine Taylor, the boy's maternal grandmother. The boy had lived with his grandmother most of his life in Eufaula, Ala., but had moved to Worcester, the second-largest city in New England, around Memorial Day to stay with his father for the summer.

Latino Justice PRLDEF sent the Judiciary Committee more than 350 pages of documents from the 12 years Sotomayor spent on its board, opening what could be an ugly new chapter in the debate over confirming the federal appeals court judge as the first Hispanic justice.

The documents were not immediately available, and committee aides confirmed their receipt on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Republicans, who have criticized Sotomayor's involvement in the group and called it radical, signaled they were searching for clues in the documents about her stances on the many hot-button issues the civil rights organization handled.

A GOP Judiciary aide said the material details PRLDEF's opposition to failed conservative high court nominee Robert Bork, and its ties to the community-activist group ACORN.

Republicans and Democrats teamed to request the documents, and GOP senators have suggested the delay in uncovering them is grounds for delaying hearings on the nomination, now set to begin on July 13.

Earlier Tuesday, Cesar Perales, PRLDEF's president and general counsel, said he was planning in the coming days to send the Judiciary panel several batches of meeting minutes from Sotomayor's period of service from 1980 until 1992, as well as pleadings from cases it handled while Sotomayor headed the board's litigation committee.

The court said Monday it will hear arguments in the case again in a special session on Sept. 9. The justices said they want lawyers to address whether the court should overturn its earlier rulings on limiting corporate and union contributions in federal elections.

Citizens United, a conservative not-for-profit group, wanted to air ads for the movie in Democratic primary states and also make the film available to cable subscribers on demand without complying with federal campaign finance law.

But lower courts have said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.

At the time of "Hillary: The Movie," the New York senator was competing with Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. She is now secretary of state in the Obama administration.

The court's composition will be different by the time it rehears the case. Justice David Souter plans to retire this month, and Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a judge from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to replace him.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could give Sotomayor's critics fresh ammunition two weeks before her Senate confirmation hearing. Conservatives say it shows she is a judicial activist who lets her own feelings color her decisions. On the other hand, liberal allies say her stance in the case demonstrates her restraint and unwillingness to go beyond established precedents.

Coincidentally, the court may have given a boost to calls for quick action on her nomination.

The court said it will return Sept. 9 to hear a second round of arguments in a campaign finance case, and with Justice David Souter retiring there would be only eight justices unless Sotomayor has been confirmed by then.

In Monday's ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions." He was joined in the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.