PUNCHING PEARCE
It's the most loaded query in PHX politics lately: "So, when did you stop beating your wife?" Truly, Valley news has been reading like a recap of that Julia Roberts flick Sleeping with the Enemy. Or maybe that made-for-the-small-screen drama The Burning Bed, starring a post-Charlie's Angels Farrah Fawcett. Take your pick.
Jose Castillo
Bad head: Pro-immigrant firebrand Isabel Garcia hoists the remainder of a Sheriff Joe piñata during a recent protest in Tucson.
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First, Democratic state Representative Mark DeSimone is arrested June 26 after a late-night squabble turned ugly with spouse Mali DeSimone, causing all kinds of butt-ache for Dems looking to earn a majority in the state House election. DeSimone promised to resign, but hasn't yet. Peep this week's column by The Bird's colleague Sarah Fenske to get the blow-by-blow.
More recently, Gilbert Mayor Steve Berman's been taking it on the chin ever since wife Michelle Berman accused, in a weepy East Valley Tribune article, the carrot-topped pol of abusing her mentally and physically for years. The allegations were given to Gilbert coppers, who then turned them over to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating. The Arizona Republic followed up on the tale by cataloguing past abuse allegations by Berman's ex-wives. Berman's maintained he's done nada wrong, and insists his estranged spouse Michelle has a substance abuse problem.
Now, this wacky warbler's uncovered allegations of spousal abuse leveled at nativist attack-dog and state Representative Russell Pearce by his wife of three decades, LuAnne. Seems in 1980, the Pearces' marriage was heading south, with LuAnne filing a petition for the marriage's dissolution. Russ was a mere sheriff's deputy, far from the beaner-bashing buffoon he was to become as a state rep.
But even then, Russ was a bully, at least according to LuAnne at the time, who alleged in the court document that:
"Further, the husband, RUSSELL KEITH PEARCE, is possessed of a violent temper, and has from time to time hit and shoved the wife, the last time being on February 3 [1980], when he grabbed the wife by the throat and threw her down."
Granted, it was a long time ago. But Pearce has anointed himself Mr. Law and Order.
He's achieved near-deity status amongst haters of Hispanics by repeating, over and over, the refrain that we need to "take the handcuffs off law enforcement" and let the cops enforce all laws when it comes to illegal aliens. You know, drive them out of the United States, like during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Operation Wetback."
Pearce actually suggested a return to the racist program in 2006, around the same time he forwarded an e-mail to his supporters from the neo-Nazi National Alliance.
Could it be that this hateful hard-ass, who's always breathing down the necks of those on the lowest rung of society — threatening them under the color of the law — might have mistreated his wife back in 1980?
LuAnne Pearce's sworn, notarized signature on the document makes a case that he did. Contacted by The Bird, however, she denied Russ had ever laid a mitt on her in anger, and suggested that her lawyer back then might've sneaked the verbiage into the divorce paperwork.
"There was a time in our marriage, yes, that we were going to get divorced," explained Mrs. Pearce, who eventually reconciled with Russ. "It has been years ago. But the stuff you're talking about; I never said that. Maybe that was just the attorney's way — I have no idea. All I'm saying is that he never struck me. He has never grabbed me by the throat and thrown me down."
Attorney E. Evans Farnsworth prepared the doc in 1980, along with tons of others like it for other clients. Now a pro-tem judge in Chandler, he didn't recall LuAnne Pearce and didn't have records going back that far. But he stated that if it was in the doc, it must've originated from the interview he conducted with Mrs. Pearce.
"In most cases, when they're alleging something like that," he said, "you even verify it by another means, if possible — one of the children, or what have you. But I would never have made an allegation in a petition that the client was unaware of."
Pearce himself, who's running for the state Senate seat vacated by Republican crazy lady Karen Johnson, returned The Bird's phone call and left a message asserting that his reputation's white as the sheets some of his supporters wear.
"It's simply not true," pleaded Pearce, later adding, "LuAnne and I have been married for 33 years. Like every marriage, you know, you have your ups and downs."
The general issue of domestic violence came up during a recent LD 18 Clean Elections debate between Pearce and his GOP primary challenger, immigration attorney Kevin Gibbons. Asked by the moderator what the candidates would do to strengthen family-violence laws, Pearce replied that such violence was "a terrible, terrible thing," and spoke of the home as "a sanctuary for our wives and our children." He contended that there are plenty of domestic abuse laws on the books already that just need to be vigorously enforced.
Sniff . . . Anyone else catch that whiff of hypocrisy in the air?
ARPAIO BASH
So why are so many in Arizona's Second City, a.k.a. Tucson, howling for the head of pro-immigrant firebrand and Pima County Legal Defender Isabel Garcia?
