A recent article in the Arizona Business Gazette announced that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio would address a Chamber of Commerce breakfast and “share his secrets of self-promotion.” Arpaio apparently believes he deserves some of the credit for Phoenix’s robust economy. He told the ABG, “I equate crime, publicity and…
For 15 years, Arizona Republic editorial cartoonist Steve Benson has vigilantly policed Arizona politics, unleashing attacks on fat cats, sacred cows, snowbirds and whale-savers. In 1993, he won a Pulitzer Prize. Since then, he’s broken with the Mormon church (his late grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson, was president of the denomination),…
Kids, Just Say No–to Biker Cults! Gilbert-area residents, be on the lookout for dangerous cultists who are roaming quiet neighborhoods “seeking whom they may devour.” They are suspiciously clean-cut (they prefer black trousers and white shirts, with narrow black ties) and usually travel in twos, on bicycles. Do not approach…
Maestro Hermann Michael, the new music director for the Phoenix Symphony, is a natty man who wears two-tone shoes and layers sweater vests over short-sleeved shirts, even when temperatures outside reach 100. He beams and beckons his way through rehearsals with the orchestra, slashing out perfect Nike swooshes with his…
Government prosecutors face a dilemma as the Symington criminal trial moves into its fourth week. Prosecutors know they must present overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing to win a conviction; they realize that no jury is likely to slam a sitting governor for making a couple of mistakes. But, at the same…
Phoenix-based Interwest Management, Inc., the firm hoping to land a $360 million contract to build and operate the South Mountain Toll Road, may be forced to shed its president, Richard Lloyd Carr, if it hopes to do business with the state. Carr, whose most recent public-private improvement is a $32…
GOP Losing Lust for S&M Going to trial on 22 criminal counts of fraud and attempted extortion can, in fact, take a toll on one’s political influence. For those keeping score, the Symington-McCain team (S&M) has struck out once again in its campaign to punish Republicans who’ve displeased the royal…
Rick Diomede and Bruce Brogard sound many common themes when they talk about their neighborhood, the FQ Story Historic District. They talk about crime, media attention and property values. They talk about efforts to clean up the streets and the concerns of their neighbors. It almost seems they have the…
Before Arizona Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill can move his team into an East Valley domed stadium–something he’s all but demanded as ransom for keeping the Cardinals in town–he’ll need plenty of assistance. Not only from an army of engineers, planners and lawyers, but also the backing of local politicians, the…
On one of their first dates, Ann Olin Pritzlaff and J. Fife Symington III watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a movie about the escapades of two rogue bank robbers who are aided and abetted by a mousy schoolmarm named Etta Place. Has former schoolteacher Ann Olin Pritzlaff Symington…
J. Fife Symington III’s former secretary, Joyce Riebel, offered the Rosemary Woods defense in court last week. Riebel poleaxed court observers by claiming the governor’s crooked financial statements were partly the result of her typing errors. She added that her word processor caused the banking fraud. Riebel claimed that when…
Ire and Brimstone The article “In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Wholly Owned Subsidiary” (Terry Greene Sterling, May 22) was very slanted and misleading. I am an heir to the equity of my mother’s life estate, which she knowingly purchased in 1985 from the Conservative…
Randy Setzer pads out of the bedroom in his stocking feet, plops down onto a couch, tucks his camouflaged battle-dress uniform into his boots, zips them up and stands. Suddenly, he’s a soldier again. “It feels sorta weird putting this on,” Setzer says of his fatigues. “It’s been a while.”…
An examination of the Amber Bass case by New Times indicates it’s possible prosecutors could file charges under Arizona’s child-abuse laws. The crime? Hastening Amber’s death by failing to monitor and administer the child’s heart medications. To prove that occurred, prosecutors would have to follow the lead of county medical…
Santa Rosa We will not be fainthearted in our search for the truth. I shall plant a rosebush of gentle radiant amber. I will patiently care for it until we find out what happened. For now the answer is denied by guilty silence. –Tascha Boychuk, 1996, on the unsolved death…
What follows are excerpts from Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s April 21 deposition. Joel Robbins: In terms of your knowledge of the jails and the violence that goes on there, you don’t have any knowledge of it independently of your staff, correct? Arpaio: Well, I’m probably the first sheriff in history around…
Faced with a series of trials, an Arizona official turns up the public relations machine to full tilt, launching a string of populist initiatives meant to soften his image. Governor J. Fife Symington III? No, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. In recent weeks, Arpaio has announced such innovations as a…
The heart of Governor J. Fife Symington III’s criminal defense has been punctured by his own jottings. It would seem that only an emergency transplant by Symington’s defense team can save him now. But if the defense team, led by John Dowd, must continue to rely on compromised witnesses such…
Fife and Bum Corps Fife Symington and his illegitimate fiefdom are taken to task thanks to Michael Lacey and John Dougherty (“Ode to Joyce,” Michael Lacey; “A Colossal Liar,” John Dougherty, May 15). Symington is just a microcosm of the malaise since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. He is…
Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth. Not only because I do not have Lou Gehrig’s disease, but because it has been my privilege and pleasure for the last 90 weeks to write the column that you are now reading. All of that will…
Leopard skins, tikis, martinis. In its day, Scottsdale’s Safari resort was the big bwana of Valley luxe. Under the hotel’s imposing porte-cochere, valets dodged lethal tail fins as they struggled to keep up with an endless stream of late-model gas guzzlers. In the resort’s continental-style restaurant, fashionably dressed guests oohed…
Iolanda and Pasquale Ranalli immigrated to New York from Italy in 1953. Middle-aged and poor, they had modest aspirations–to raise their three children, and then to save enough money for a happy retirement in America. But life in America was more of a struggle than they had envisioned. Unable to…
