A disbarred Manhattan lawyer who pleaded guilty to statutory rape has sued the American Express Co. for giving police credit card information he says led to his capture.

James Colliton was arrested in February 2006 near Toronto, where prosecutors say he fled after being indicted on charges of having sex with underage girls.

The 44-year-old Colliton said Monday that American Express violated its agreement to withhold customer information from third parties. The lawsuit seeks an unspecified sum.

"James Colliton, once a $500,000-a-year tax lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, contends the credit card company breached its rules by telling authorities that he had used the card in February 2006 to pay for gas in Ontario, Canada," according to the N.Y. Daily News.

At the time, Colliton was wanted on statutory rape charges. The New York Post says he later pleaded guilty   Colliton pleaded guilty in October 2007 and was sentenced to three concurrent one-year terms.  He spent 19 months in a New York prison.

But Colliton tells the Daily News that he wasn't running from the cops when Canadian authorities took him into custody. "You're not a fugitive if you sign into a major chain hotel using your driver's license and your American Express card," he says.

American Express spokeswoman Joanna Lambert says company officials haven't seen the lawsuit and can't comment.

Sec. 49.12. APPLICABILITY TO CERTAIN CONDUCT. Sections 49.07 and 49.08 do not apply to injury to or the death of an unborn child if the conduct charged is conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child.

Added by Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 822, Sec. 2.05, eff. Sept. 1, 2003.

The Virginia Supreme Court has overturned a state antispam law and the 2004 conviction of long-time spammer Jeremy Jaynes, saying the law is an overly broad prohibition on anonymous free speech.

The Supreme Court, in a decision released Friday, said the 2003 Virginia spam law didn't distinguish between commercial e-mails and those with political messages, and thus was an overly broad prohibition on free speech protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Here is the opinion.

Jaynes was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to nine years in prison for sending millions of unsolicited e-mail messages a day from his home in North Carolina. He was the first person to be convicted of sending illegal spam in the U.S.

Sec. 49.11. PROOF OF MENTAL STATE UNNECESSARY.

(a) Notwithstanding Section 6.02(b), proof of a culpable mental state is not required for conviction of an offense under this chapter.

(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to an offense under Section 49.031.

Added by Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 318, Sec. 22, eff. Sept. 1, 1995. Amended by Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 969, Sec. 4, eff. Sept. 1, 2001.

Sec. 49.10. NO DEFENSE.

In a prosecution under Section 49.03, 49.04, 49.045, 49.05, 49.06, 49.065, 49.07, or 49.08, the fact that the defendant is or has been entitled to use the alcohol, controlled substance, drug, dangerous drug, or other substance is not a defense.

Added by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, Sec. 1.01, eff. Sept. 1, 1994. Amended by Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 1364, Sec. 14, eff. Jan. 1, 2000; Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 787, Sec. 3, eff. Sept. 1, 2003.