Heather and Yon Motherly love: My heart goes out to Heather Grossman and her kids (“Paralyzed in Paradise,” Amy Silverman, May 1) . Shame on the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for dismissing Heather’s case! The county attorney needs to be schooled in domestic abuse behavior so that next time he…
Dwarfed behind the computer monitor at station 37, 12-year-old Mitchell Swift barks out commands to his fellow Counter-Strike players like a Gulf War II commander trash-talking his troops. “No camping, bitch!” he yells at the screen to the character represented by his older brother Josh’s friend Jesse, who’s sitting just…
Leon Woodward was expecting an apology when he picked up the letter from city zoning officials in late March. After all, city officials had admitted their inspectors were wrong for harassing Woodward about the height of signs in his U.S. Parking Systems parking lots, which dot the landscape of downtown…
Authorities in Orange County, California, raided two surgical clinics after a New Times story revealed that the clinics were part of a health-care insurance scam that also involves workers for a Phoenix hazardous-waste firm. Armed with search warrants, investigators with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office executed the predawn raids…
Congress was cheered when it passed a bill last month to combat child abductions. But local concert promoters are only gradually becoming aware that the legislation, signed into law by President Bush last week, contained a sucker punch they didn’t see coming. Bush signed the Protect Act of 2003 with…
Unsafe at Home He’s Gross, man: I am shocked, appalled and disgusted by John Grossman’s treatment of his invalid wife (“Paralyzed in Paradise,” Amy Silverman, May 1). As a domestic-abuse survivor myself, I believe Heather’s story 100 percent. When you have no self-esteem, you are too afraid to tell anyone…
Heather Grossman tells a classic tale of domestic abuse. She says her husband John spit in her face, slapped her, tossed garbage on her bed, threw bags of dog feces at her, smeared food on her face, locked her in a bedroom away from her children, threatened the kids and…
The spiritual leader of a fundamentalist Mormon sect along the Arizona-Utah border apparently fathered a child with a second underage girl he considers one of his many wives, according to Utah birth records obtained by New Times. A Utah birth certificate shows that 47-year-old Warren Jeffs is the father of…
A Mesa man who spent almost two years incarcerated at the Maricopa County Jail was freed in late March, on the eve of his trial for sexual assault. Justin Gregg had been charged with raping Jennifer McAllister in June 2001, while the two were patients at the county’s Desert Vista…
Son of Scam Losing patients: Well done (“Rent a Patient,” Paul Rubin, April 24). Many of my clients (employers/health insurance carriers) have been battling fraud of this sort for a long time and have had difficulty getting the public and regulators interested. I think your article will help with this…
Julio Hernandez says he felt “healthy as a horse” before he agreed to use his body as an instrument for insurance fraud. But during a five-month stretch last year, the 36-year-old Phoenix resident endured the following medical procedures: A circumcision. Removal of his sweat glands. A nose operation. A colonoscopy…
Like cockroaches and Tom Arnold, the only good thing that can be said about Jim Irvin is that he’s a survivor. Who else could remain in office after a jury leveled a $60.4 million judgment against them for official misconduct? Who else could remain in office after costing the state…
Peaks and Valleys A mountain out of a molehill: I just wanted to thank you for this insightful piece (“Squaw Peeved,” Robert Nelson, April 17). My fiancé and I thought we were the only ones to see through the ridiculous posturing of our faux Democrat of a governor. I would…
Saddle Creek, the Omaha, Nebraska, label that is home to Cursive, Bright Eyes, Desaparecidos, the Good Life, the Faint, and Rilo Kiley, recently celebrated its 50th release by compiling a double-CD sampler of its bands, each of whom contribute a previously released song and a new song. Saddle Creek 50…
“Phoenix, MEXICO!”² Lupillo Rivera’s shout is swallowed up by a deafening roar from the tightly packed audience in front of him. The singer grins at what he sees. Men in cowboy hats and women wearing tight jeans and halter tops fill Club 602, a large nightspot in west Phoenix and…
Although “Oft Penetrated Native American Vagina Peak” has a nice ring to it, it would not be an appropriate new name for Squaw Peak. That’s because “squaw,” as the subscholarly sociolinguists in the American Indian Movement have long argued, is not in fact synonymous with “Indian whore,” nor is it…
The Arizona Commission for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing has “inefficiently or inappropriately used over $1 million of public monies” since mid-2000, according to the state Auditor General’s Office. Almost all of that money went to a Phoenix company that critics say has enjoyed a sweetheart deal with…
Former Tucson Citizen reporter Susan Carroll was named Arizona’s top journalist of the year for 2002 at the annual Arizona Press Club awards banquet held Saturday at the Heard Museum. The 25-year-old Carroll won the prestigious Virg Hill Journalist of the Year Award for her portfolio which included stories about…
The state ombudsman’s office has concluded that the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections failed to conduct an adequate investigation into allegations that a security officer seriously injured a boy in the state’s custody. The event in question took place in January 2001, when Seth Edwards, then detained at the Adobe…
I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do Fear and loathing in Colorado City: I’ve read with interest the stories about life and corruption in Colorado City, Arizona (“Bound by Fear,” John Dougherty, March 13; “The Wages of Sin,” John Dougherty, April 10). I think it’s interesting that I could…
The Spike is a big believer in the scientific theorem known as What Goes Around Comes Around. Thus The Spike was happy to see that a Phoenix police officer recently won a million-dollar lawsuit against a bad guy since it’s usually the bad guy who sues the cops. In September…
Only one thing has become absolutely clear as the pedo-priest scandal reaches its first anniversary in Phoenix: Bishop Thomas O’Brien cares about nothing other than keeping his pointy hat. Last April, as stories of pedophile priests erupted around the country, I wrote a column about O’Brien’s own immoral 20-year history…
