Briefly... CITY/REGION

The crack-cocaine-addicted mother of a newborn baby girl found lying in a cardboard box in North Philadelphia last Dec. 21, was found not guilty of attempted murder and aggravated assault Friday.

Patricia "Dina" Crawley, 33, was convicted of the lesser charges of simple assault, child endangerment and reckless endangerment. She remains behind bars on $500,000 bail and will be sentenced Dec. 10 by Common Pleas Judge Alice Dubow.

With her umbilical cord still attached, the child who came to be known as "Baby Noel" was discovered by a group of men cleaning up the neighborhood on 27th Street near Cumberland. Police used DNA evidence to link Crawley to the baby, who was hospitalized for 10 days and then placed in foster care.

Federal prosecutors charged an Alabama woman late Thursday in connection with the Aug. 24 theft of a $3 million rare-porcelain bust of Benjamin Franklin from a Bryn Mawr home, where she formerly worked as a housekeeper.

Andrea Lawton, 46, of Mobile, Ala., who is in federal custody, was charged with one count of interstate transportation of stolen property and one count of concealing stolen property.

Authorities said that after Lawton learned Lower Merion police had obtained an arrest warrant for her, she fled to Alabama sometime between Aug. 26 and Aug. 28. The indictment said Lawton told a person in Pennsylvania on Sept. 17 to purchase a bus ticket for her to travel from Mobile to Elkton, Md., where she planned to sell the bust. She was arrested by the FBI in Elkton on Sept. 21 in possession of the bust.

Two Philadelphia men were sentenced on Friday to federal prison terms of more than 240 years each for their roles in violent armed robberies of pharmacies and other businesses in Philadelphia, and for violent home-invasion robberies that included the abduction and torture of one victim.

Authorities said that between February and May 2010, Emmanuel Duran, 28, and John Bowie, 23, robbed six Philadelphia pharmacies at gunpoint, and with co-defendant Raheem Brown, who was sentenced Wednesday, robbed an auto-body repair shop in North Philadelphia. In that robbery, a customer was shot in the leg when he failed to hand over money to Duran quickly enough.

Bowie, Duran and co-defendant Lamar Staten were also convicted in a separate trial of the March 2010 abduction and torture of a victim the defendants mistakenly believed to be a drug dealer.

A Philadelphia woman is facing charges of weapons violations and tampering with public records after allegedly buying six handguns for a felon, the District Attorney's Office announced Friday.

Lakeisha Taylor, 41, bought two .40-caliber handguns at a local gun shop and the salesman, who became suspicious of her, called the Gun Violence Task Force - which is a partnership between the District Attorney's Office, the Attorney General's Office and the Philadelphia Police Department, said Tasha Jamerson, spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office.

Authorities checked Taylor's purchase history and found that she also bought a .357 Glock, two .45-caliber handguns and a .40-caliber handgun.

Taylor told police she bought the guns for Michael Gardiner, 31, a felon who was arrested Thursday at his home on Yocum Street near 72nd in West Philadelphia with two of the guns in his possession.

- Mensah M. Dean, Michael Hinkelman and Phillip Lucas contributed to this report