A Nigerian man who fled to his homeland after being accused of defrauding dozens of lawyers and law firms of more than $31 million dollars has been extradited to the U.S., Nigeria’s anti-graft agency said Friday.

Emmanuel Ekhator was arrested in Nigeria’s Benin City by the country’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in August. He was handed over to U.S. marshals in New York on Thursday, said Femi Babafemi, the anti-graft body’s spokesman.

“With the latest extradition, ... the message should be clear to anyone who travels abroad to commit crime and run back home to hide that Nigeria is no longer safe for them,” Farida Waziri, the anti-graft body’s chief, said in a statement. “We will get them and hand them over to face the law.”

Court records show Ekhator has yet to be assigned a lawyer. He remained in custody on Friday.

Charging documents from the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania show that Ekhator and others are accused of mail and wire fraud after using bank accounts in South Korea, Singapore, China and Japan to collect the stolen money.

Federal prosecutors say the complicated scam involved multiple players, with a fraudster calling a U.S. or Canadian law firm posing as someone usually in Asia who needed to collect a debt from a person or organization based in North America. Another scammer poses as the debtor and agrees to pay off the debt — using a fake check, authorities say.

The law firms or lawyers collect the fake check, which gets validated by a third scammer posing as a bank employee over the telephone. Before the victims realize the check is fake, they’ve already used their own money to pay the fake settlement amount to their supposedly Asia-based client.

The Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld first-degree murder convictions against an Oakland County man for stabbing his parents to death.

Mark Ott of White Lake Township was convicted in the fatal stabbings last year. The bodies of 57-year-olds Barbara and Michael Ott were discovered in February 2008 at their home in White Lake Township, about 30 miles northwest of Detroit.

On Wednesday, the he appeals court affirmed the jury's decision to find Ott guilty but mentally ill. Ott is serving the mandatory sentence of life without parole.

The appeals court vacated Ott's convictions on two counts of second-degree murder based on double jeopardy principles. The ruling says double jeopardy doesn't allow multiple punishments for the same offense.

The White House is expressing confidence that it's constitutional to require people to have health insurance and believes that President Barack Obama's health care law will be survive all legal challenges in the end.

Obama adviser Stephanie Cutter says the White House strongly disagrees with an appeals court ruling Friday that struck down the insurance requirement at the center of a law.

She says the White House is confident that ruling will not stand.

Cutter notes on the White House blog that four other courts, including a different appeals court, has upheld the law.

Many legal observers expect the U.S. Supreme Court to have the final say on the issue.

The New York State Common Retirement Fund has announced a proposed $168 million settlement of its securities fraud class-action lawsuit against National City Corp. alleging misrepresentations to investors.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, trustee of the $146.5 billion fund and lead plaintiff, says the defendants agreed to the settlement but admitted no wrongdoing.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc., which bought Cleveland-based National City in 2008, declined to comment.

The suit alleges National City misrepresented the quality of its mortgages and home equity loans and the severity of its losses.

The settlement is expected to go before U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. in the Northern District of Ohio for preliminary approval in the next few weeks, with all class members notified after that.

A federal appeals court panel on Friday struck down the requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul package that virtually all Americans must carry health insurance or face penalties.

The divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the so-called individual mandate, siding with 26 states that had sued to block the law. But the panel didn't go as far as a lower court that had invalidated the entire overhaul as unconstitutional.

The states and other critics argued the law violates people's rights, while the Justice Department countered that the legislative branch was exercising a "quintessential" power.

The decision, penned by Chief Judge Joel Dubina and Circuit Judge Frank Hull, found that "the individual mandate contained in the Act exceeds Congress's enumerated commerce power."

"What Congress cannot do under the Commerce Clause is mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die," the opinion said.

Four graduates of Thomas M. Cooley Law School have sued their alma mater, claiming the school misrepresented its post-graduation employment statistics to attract students.

The Lansing State Journal and the Detroit Free Press report the lawsuit was filed Wednesday. The suit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan by New York law firm Kurzon Strauss seeks class-action status and $250 million in damages.

James Thelen, Cooley's associate dean for legal affairs and general counsel, says the school stands by its post-graduation employment and salary statistics. He says any claims that students or graduates have been misled or legally harmed are "baseless."

The Lansing-based school earlier sued the law firm, claiming it was defaming the school in online ads seeking potential plaintiffs who attended Cooley.