Over a period of time, I have become more than just skeptical of County Attorney Richard Romley and his partner in the AzScam sting, then-Police Chief Ruben Ortega. Nothing personal. It’s just that after years of covering these two, it is my opinion that both Romley and Ortega are more…
A RIBBON through bleakness, the latest installment of the Hohokam Expressway snakes up from the south, fording the Salt River. It gathers momentum, sending exit ramps diving for Sky Harbor International Airport and Washington Street, and seems to promise a shot at Camelback Mountain before merging into McDowell Road. Like…
But the condemnation process does not require the state to pay a landowner for a property’s potential or the dreams of grandeur harbored by a developer. Just compensation is considered the value of the property at the moment it is appraised. The state’s appraisers came onto Gabrielli’s land and saw…
He says he believes ADOT knew about the pesticides in the concrete sump and refused to settle his case in order to hold him responsible for the cleanup. He suggests that the state didn’t order the Phase II audit because it knew the study would discover problems, and that the…
When we last left temple murder suspect Mike McGraw, he had driven off into the sunset in a white Corvette with Pam, a woman he said was his longtime girlfriend. McGraw, whose apparent lies about the August 10 massacre of nine Buddhists at Wat Promkunaram landed him and three others…
The message on my telephone recorder was from Wally Pritchard. This is your old pal, Wally,” the voice said. I’m back on the street again. But things aren’t going too good for me here in Chicago. I’m thinking about coming out to Phoenix to settle down. Give me a call.”…
You are now free to discuss your observations,” Mike Arra said. Arra is the prison official supervising the media members who witnessed the killing. Arra is a onetime television personality turned prison public relations man. He once worked for Channel 10 but went into prison work when it became obvious…
So the state started freeway construction in the middle of a former chemical plant without first checking to see what might lie beneath the surface of the ground. This is a remarkable oversight given the state’s own records which documented the 22-year presence of Olin Mathieson on the site. This…
In order to adequately protect the security of this country, it is requested that authority be granted to place a technical surveillance at his current residence and at any future address to which he may move.” Levine was not interested in talking with Soviet agents. He was trying to find…
For bar leaders, normally tightlipped about everything, to encourage the Republic to review his case file was an outrage of the highest order, Levine says. In this instance, the bar chose to fight Levine’s argument against merit selection by attacking his credibility. Turney, who was not at the meeting but…
WALKING OUT of Maricopa County Superior Court in late 1984, Anthony Abril Jr. should have been a happy man. A jury had just awarded the 32-year-old hairdresser $1.3 million in damages from his insurance company, a remarkable verdict considering that Abril had sued over the distress he suffered after running…
I would not enter into that agreement as a lawyer in a thousand years, period,” attorney David Gage, a seasoned member of the state’s personal-injury bar, would later testify. Mr. Harris has a clear conflict of interest under this agreement, and it is an intolerable conflict of interest, in my…
Kevin Johnson-we know it was him, his license plates said Hope 7″- entered the Fish Market for dinner with a date on Tuesday night. But he left his parking lights on. Informed that the battery inside his black Porsche was dying, Johnson, already seated at a table, shrugged. A few…
At long last I am able to say a few words of my own. I have never wanted to withhold anything, but until now it has not been constitutionally possible for me to speak. Besides, my lawyers and public relations men have advised against it. A few hours ago I…
SYMINGTON This is not a love story. Nor is this about the lives of private persons. In fact, the story of Annette Alvarez and Fife Symington is a public disgrace. It’s an old tale about the bigness of little things, of petty crimes that become a person’s undoing. If the…
I get out of the car. I want a better look. High above stands Leona Helmsley’s $10 million house. It shimmers in the bright afternoon sun, seemingly clinging to the top of Mummy Mountain in Paradise Valley. A large American flag flaps in the breeze from a very tall flagpole…
On April 15, Leona Helmsley will report to prison. One of those desperate dowagers who wipes on the cosmetics with a catcher’s mitt, the hotel hostess was convicted of being a tax weasel. On the very same day that Helmsley begins serving her sentence, the rest of us will have…
Roberta had seen a lawyer about a divorce before this, but had never followed through on it. “I loved David,” Roberta said later. “He was basically a nice man.” ROBERTA KORZEP has remained steadfast on a central issue of David’s violent death: “That’s the maddest I had ever seen him…
VALENTINE’S DAY 1987 hadn’t been overly romantic for Roberta and David Korzep, but they seemed to be having a decent enough time. The Yuma couple liked to play the dogs, and they decided to make a night of it at the local greyhound park. They went to the track early…
That explains Willie’s bargain price. Nelson and Donna Scott continued to see each other over the years. They’re still friends; Scott says she last saw Nelson three years ago. Committed to keeping live music, current owner Martin Zanzucchi sticks mostly to local country bands. With a 250-person fire limit, the…
THEY LEFT Las Vegas at midnight and an hour later they’d crossed the breast of Hoover Dam. It was a Saturday in August in 1950, and my father was headed back to Pennsylvania from California. He’d spent five years in an Army burn unit after the war, so this vacation…
Actors are notoriously willing to try anything, but even the most eager beaver might have done a double take at this audition notice: “One male actor with some musical ability and acting age range of 30 to 45, needed for a joint theatre/psychoneuroimmunology research project…Note: Small blood samples will be…
