21-year-old transsexual Benitha, formerly known as Kavi Raj Tamaraselvan was spared the cane but was sent to the women's jail for 14 months for her role in setting fire to an apartment in a public housing state, something that is commonly used by loan shark runners employed by unlicensed moneylenders to harass indebted people.

Male offenders would normally receive between three and six strokes of the cane for each such offence but Benitha who is now a woman had undergone a sex change operation in Thailand some months before committing the offence.

The defence council pleaded for leniency, saying Benitha fell under the corrupting influence of Geevanraj Balraj, one of her two accomplices who had promised to marry her.

Benitha's other accomplice as a 15-year-old boy was placed on two years probation. Her accomplices were also spared the cane because of their young age.

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Kaushik Jayantibhai Thakkar,33,and Brazilian Fabiano Augusto Amorim have been sentenced to serve three years in prison on charges of trafficking immigrants from India into the US.

The Acting US Attorney General Mythili Raman said the two were sentenced for thier roles in smuggling undocumented migrants to the US for private financial gain. Thakkar and Amorim have in addition been sentenced to serve two years of supervised release on the order of the US District Judge in the Southern District of Texas.

Both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and to one count of unlawfully bringing two undocumented migrants into the US for profit. They worked together with other co-conspirators to smuggle individuals who were willing to pay upto $60,000 to be smuggled into the US. They used a network of accessories in South America, Central America, the Caribbean and the US including the state of Texas.

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Former presidential candidate and popular talk show host Chandra Narine Sharma, 63, is to stand trial on charges of raping a 7-year-old girl to whom he paid money after each alleged rape, which prosecutors say went on for a year.

Sharma has pleaded not guilty and is now free on bail of $10,000.

He owns a TV station in Guyana but has not appeared on air because of health problems including diabetes and high blood pressure.

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Ankur Roy, Akash Patel and Dipen Desai who owned and operated Selectcare Health Inc that provided outpatient physical and respiratory therapy in the Chicago area, have been charged with submitting over $ 4 million in false billings to Medicare between March and July 2011. Each have been charged with six counts of healthcare fraud.

Doctor Nalini Ahluwalia has been charged with one count of violating the anti-kickback law, for allegedly receiving $1000 in exchange for referring two patients to a home healthcare agency in 2012. Nalini will be ordered to appear before the US District Court.

Ankur Roy, 36, of Miami was arrested in South Florida. Patel, 33, of Morton Grove and Desai, 33, of Chicago will appear for arraignment at a later date. All three men submitted false claims to Medicare and Blue Cross Blue Shield on behalf of Selectcare patients for respiratory therapy services that were never provided.

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Mamta Kulkarni the striking beauty who went the way of sleaze and sex in the 90s when she was featured topless on the cover of a film magazine, and chose anonymity, found love with Vicky Goswami the international drug kingpin who was arrested for trafficking drugs and incarcerated in Dubai.

All these years later Vicky now age 52, was released from the Dubai prison last November after his life sentence was reduced for good behaviour. While in prison he converted to Islam and married his beloved Mamta according to Islamic rites. During his absence Mamta managed his real estate business that includes a hotel in Dubai.

Vicky's release from prison was kept out of the flood lights of the media, and the court ordered he be deported to his native India. Sources close to the couple say he left for Kenya soon after and Vicky and his wife Mamta are now in Nairobi.

One would be pardoned for believing this is just another Bollywood film script, but then, the story of Bonnie and Clyde, was equally romantic and true in its telling. The difference is this story hopefully has a happy ending for Mamta and Vicky.

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