In court papers, Dreier LLP says Regan reneged on a retainer agreement she signed and then fired the law firm "in a transparent and calculated effort to avoid paying petitioners the agreed upon fee."

After Dreier prepared and filed the lawsuit, court papers say, Regan hired Los Angeles lawyer Bertram Fields to negotiate a settlement with HarperCollins. The terms were not disclosed.

After the settlement was final, Regan fired Dreier and refused to pay the firm, court papers say.

The lawsuit names Fields as a defendant and accuses him of tortious interference with the business relationship between Dreier and Regan.

The jury's verdicts capped more than 37 hours of deliberations over a four-and-a-half days in the Dutchess County Courthouse, in Poughkeepsie.

Gilleo, 33, of Hopewell Junction, N.Y., also was convicted on five counts of armed robbery, two counts of conspiracy, one count of perjury and two counts of arson.

A co-defendant, 30-year-old Mark Serrano, was convicted last year on 31 first- and second-degree murder charges, in addition to arson, robbery, conspiracy and perjury charges.

Gilleo and Serrano were accused of going to the Morey home on Route 82 in Fishkill and robbing Manuel and Tina of cash and cocaine, killing all five members of the family and setting fire to their house and car in an attempt to cover up the crimes.

Carlos Kauffmann, 35, was one of five men accused of acting on behalf of Venezuela's anti-U.S. government in a case that touched off corruption allegations in Argentina and diplomatic tensions between the Washington, Caracas and Buenos Aires.

Kauffmann entered a guilty plea on Friday to a charge of conspiring to act as an agent of Venezuela without registering with the U.S. government and could face five years in prison. He agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, according to a plea agreement released by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami.