Church helps reimburse victims of member's fraud

After a former church member admitted defrauding investors of more than $20 million, The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston said it is donating the $2.3 million he gave it to help reimburse victims. Eric Resteiner recently pleaded guilty to fraud charges in US District Court in Boston and is awaiting sentencing. Resteiner donated $2.3 million to the church, which spent it without knowing it may have come from defrauded investors. Upon learning of the allegations against Resteiner, the church contacted the Securities and Exchange Commission. (Jeffrey Krasner)

Bain Capital LLC, the Boston-based buyout firm that acquired Dunkin' Donuts this month, is seeking as much as $10 billion for its biggest takeover fund, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter. Bain's fund is scheduled to close by March 31, said the people, who declined to be identified because the plans are confidential. A Bain spokesman declined to comment. (Bloomberg)

Friendly Ice Cream Corp.'s fourth-quarter loss widened due to a $22.2 million charge, along with a shorter quarter and higher gas prices. The Wilbraham company posted a loss of $30.2 million, or $3.82 a share, compared with a loss of $232,000, or 3 cents a share a year earlier. The recent loss included an expense of $2.80 a share for an increase in deferred tax valuation. The year-earlier period included a charge of 17 cents a share for a pension settlement. Revenue fell 12 percent to $123.5 million from $139.5 million a year earlier. (Dow Jones)

A judge ordered VoiceSignal Technologies Inc., a maker of speech-recognition software, to hand over complete source code to a representative of rival Nuance Communications Inc. and a neutral expert in a trade secrets lawsuit. In the suit, filed two years ago in federal court in Boston, Burlington-based Nuance, formerly known as ScanSoft Inc., alleged that Woburn-based VoiceSignal misappropriated voice recognition technology that Nuance bought from a third company. ''No Nuance employee will have access to any of the VoiceSignal code and, furthermore, Nuance was also ordered to produce their 'complete and unredacted' source code to the neutral expert and VoiceSignal's counsel," a VoiceSignal spokeswoman said, calling Judge Patti B. Saris's ruling a ''nonevent," and saying VoiceSignal has filed a counterclaim against Nuance. (Bloomberg)

Industrial production increased 0.7 percent last month because of a big pickup in output at utility companies. Meanwhile, factory production was flat. The sharp increase reported for overall industrial activity by the Federal Reserve came after a 0.3 percent decline in January. The January loss reflected a huge decline in production at gas and electric utilities due to unusually warm weather. And the 7.9 percent increase in utility output registered in February reflected just the opposite, the Federal Reserve said. (AP)

US District Judge James Ware told Google Inc. to provide the Justice Department by April 3 with the addresses of 50,000 randomly selected websites indexed by its search engine. The government plans to use the data for a study in another case in Pennsylvania, where the Bush administration is trying to revive a law meant to shield children from online pornography. Ware, though, decided Google won't have to disclose what people have been looking for, a significant victory for Google and privacy rights advocates. (AP)