Karen Hayward has been trying for years to get her ex-husband to pay overdue child support. She thought she’d finally succeeded when the Maricopa County Superior Court ordered him to pay up or be arrested in June. Hayward even had the help of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office to collect…
The video opens with shots of a choir: well-groomed young men singing “Silent Night” to a group of senior citizens. Then the image cuts to cops arresting kids. Cut back to the chorus, voices raised in song. Cut back to a cop confiscating an ugly-looking gun. Baseball celebrity Joe Garagiola…
The nurse who examined a 16-year-old boy in the weeks before he died at the Arizona Boys Ranch says she is not responsible for the teen’s death since he showed no signs of an infection. In her first interview since the boy died on March 2, the nurse, Linda Babb,…
State medical officials are the latest to investigate the death of a teenage boy at the Arizona Boys Ranch. They’re looking into the conduct of the nurse and doctor who examined 16-year-old Nicholaus Contreraz before he died of a massive infection. Their inquiries come as a California report rips the…
Dr. Ram Krishna delivered the best news possible to Mary Nixon: Her daughter, Billye, did not have cancer. Too bad he was wrong. Krishna, a Yuma orthopedic surgeon and secretary of the state Board of Medical Examiners (BOMEX), thought Billye’s cancer was a simple fracture. But when Mary tried to…
Bill Perschetti was typing a letter when he found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. The office manager of Summerville and Associates had heard the front doors of the offices crash open, and someone yelling, “Police! Police!” He thought it was just a joke. Then he looked up…
Several top staffers have left Arizona’s troubled Board of Medical Examiners (BOMEX). The agency, which has struggled for several years with a huge backlog of complaints against doctors, last week lost its chief lawyer and deputy director, departures apparently prompted by the arrival of a new executive director. Assistant Attorney…
Father Ken Van De Veen is one pissed-off man of the cloth. Van De Veen is one of a number of people in Phoenix’s HIV/AIDS community who’s questioning the administration of last year’s AIDS Walk Arizona–a giant fund raiser organized by AIDS Project Arizona (APAZ). The AIDS Walk is a…
Maricopa County Superior Court judge’s dismissal of claims that an industrial solvent can cause cancer and other health problems could have a chilling effect on toxic-liability suits across the country. Judge Steven Sheldon’s recent decision to reject contentions by 18 Scottsdale residents as lacking scientific foundation has caught the attention…
Steve Benitez was stabbed through the heart in his cell after an error by the Arizona Department of Corrections kept him out of protective custody. Now the state might have to cut a check to his family to pay for that mistake. Attorneys for the estate of Benitez, a gang…
The Arizona Department of Corrections has fired a sergeant at the Aspen facility in Phoenix after an investigation confirmed reports of misconduct with inmates. Ben Sanders was dismissed April 20 after DOC found he had slapped one inmate, licked tongues with another and may have kissed several others. “This is…
When a Scottsdale police officer opened fire on a group of unarmed construction workers at a gas station on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Reservation last September, no fewer than 11 of his fellow officers came charging to his aid like the U.S. Cavalry. Now that officer, James J. Rode,…
They say everyone deserves a second chance. At last count, Dr. Bipinchandra Jadav has had 15. The doctor, a general practitioner in Mesa, has had more than a dozen complaints filed with the state Board of Medical Examiners (BOMEX). He has had his license restricted once, has been ordered not…
The legal skirmish between a local pro-life group and the City of Phoenix is now in the hands of a federal appeals court. Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White heard arguments about the city’s bus advertisement policy on March 12 as part of a three-judge panel of the Ninth…
You’d think the one place a person would be safe would be locked inside a prison cell. You’d be wrong. In 1996, a team of lawyers brought a class-action suit against the Arizona Department of Corrections on behalf of 274 inmates in protective segregation. DOC wanted to move those inmates…
When Julie Vega got the call about her son at 10 minutes to 10 p.m. on March 2, she knew something was wrong. Virginia Avila, a California-based community services coordinator for the Arizona Boys Ranch, told her she needed to talk to Vega–in person–about her 16-year-old son, Nick Contreraz, who…
A sergeant at the Aspen Correctional Facility in Phoenix is under investigation by the Arizona Department of Corrections for possible sexual misconduct. At least four prisoners are involved in the investigation, and one says Sergeant Ben Sanders made sexual advances to him and touched him inappropriately. The inmate also says…
In 1996, the Maricopa County Environmental Services Division launched a bold, new program to computerize its health inspection process. The aim was to provide on-the-spot permits and evaluations to facilities. The division spent $384,745 on 60 handheld computers for use in the field. But then most of the computers sat…
Johnny Lee Riley spent his 48th birthday in court, charged with a crime he thought he’d run away from 24 years earlier. Armed robbery. Burglary. And, a big surprise to Riley, first-degree murder. It wasn’t that he was trying to hide his past. A minister for the past 13 years,…
The accusations against Dr. Ken Fisher seem more like a case of mistaken identity than of sexual abuse; surely, you think, these people are not talking about the same man. One Dr. Fisher is a well-known and respected physician who began treating AIDS at a time when many physicians literally…
On a bulletin board in the break room at the City of Phoenix’s Squaw Peak Water Treatment Plant is a notice to all employees: “As an organized employee, you have the right to be represented by your union steward at an investigatory interview.” That advice comes in handy at Squaw…
Eight simple white crosses, made of PVC pipe, rattle slightly in the wind along a stretch of road north of Flagstaff, just past milepost 440 on Highway 89. They mark the eight who died here, killed in the same spot in two separate accidents last year. The first accident killed…
