In the center of attention, as he has been for years, Fife Symington takes stock of the situation. To his side stands his shell-shocked wife, Ann. Dressed in a red blazer and black skirt, she dutifully assumes her role as the loyal, supportive companion of the fallen leader. On the…

Former Arizona governor J. Fife Symington III has just escaped a crush of reporters at the federal courthouse and is moving toward his car when he spies three of the jurors who found him guilty. It is January 20, and Symington is leaving a daylong presentencing hearing. The jurors happen…

Harold Thompson: Addressing a difficult subject Harold Thompson’s mind reeled on August 15, a hot Friday afternoon, as he sat on a bus, heading west on Interstate 10. For the previous three months, the bus ride to 79th Avenue, where his motor home was parked, had served as a decompression…

A petition citing numerous allegations including gambling irregularities is circulating to recall the leader of the Gila River Indian Community. The petition surfaced earlier this week, although it is unclear who is organizing the recall effort. The petition, which had not been filed with the tribal secretary for legal approval…

Try as he might, Otis Thrasher can’t help but laugh. It’s only been a few days since surgeons removed his cancerous prostate gland, and the last thing the recently retired and highly decorated Arizona Department of Public Safety narcotics officer wants to do is launch into a full guffaw. But…

A breakneck building schedule has resulted in huge cost overruns, design and construction errors and infighting among key players in the Bank One Ballpark project. These problems, spelled out in Maricopa County stadium-construction records, raise questions about whether the taxpayer-financed stadium will perform as promised. Officials are optimistic that everything…

Challengers in Tempe’s upcoming city council race have been rebuffed in attempts to gain access to the city’s popular Web site (www.Tempe.gov) to promote their campaigns. Tempe’s mayor and six council members all have photographs and brief biographies posted on the city’s Web page, which receives more than 200,000 hits…

Punch the words “Fife Symington” and “tax cuts” into a popular-newspaper database, and more than 1,000 articles will be cited. The articles, most of them from the Arizona Republic, invariably attribute Arizona’s robust economy to Symington’s strong support of personal income tax cuts during his six-year tenure as governor. “Governor…

J. Fife Symington III moved to Arizona more than two decades ago to escape the long shadow of his influential, wealthy Maryland family. “I’m not beholden to my past out here,” Symington explained in 1984 while trying to drum up support for his ill-fated Camelback Esplanade. But Symington has corruption…

John Dowd, Governor J. Fife Symington III’s lead defense attorney, long ago mastered the art of media manipulation. His strategy is simple: Intimidate reporters who challenge him; reward those who go along. Although his skills were evident last week, legal experts say the media firestorm Dowd stoked in the aftermath…

Governor J. Fife Symington III’s criminal trial took a bizarre turn Tuesday, August 19, when U.S. District Court Judge Roger B. Strand dismissed a 72-year-old woman from the jury, which had been deliberating for more than seven days. Strand thanked the juror for her 13 weeks of service and said…

The governor turned to his family, and his wife and two eldest sons came close. The four stood in a tight circle behind the table where the governor sat as a defendant throughout a historic and an epic criminal trial. His wife, Ann, who throughout the trial had remained composed,…

During the 13 weeks he’s presided over Governor J. Fife Symington III’s criminal trial, U.S. District Court Judge Roger B. Strand often has delayed making even routine decisions. His indecisiveness continued Tuesday, August 5, when Strand declined to release final jury instructions to the prosecution and defense lawyers on the…

Inexorably, federal prosecutor David Schindler is dragging Governor J. Fife Symington III through a time Symington would rather forget. Schindler is taking Symington back 12 years, to the fall of 1985, when the first major cracks in Symington’s development company began to appear. Back to the days when Symington was…

Thirteen months ago–on June 13, 1996–Governor J. Fife Symington III summoned the media to the State Capitol to respond to the announcement that a federal grand jury had accused him of committing 23 felonies. Symington told the packed conference room that he wouldn’t attempt to detail the evidence that he…

For 10 weeks, federal prosecutors have presented evidence showing Governor J. Fife Symington III repeatedly overstated his assets and understated his liabilities when preparing personal financial statements between 1986 and 1990. The government alleges Symington prepared the false statements to influence lenders to grant loans to his real estate development…

Thomas Washburne has spent the past decade dealing with Governor J. Fife Symington III’s insatiable appetite for spending other people’s money. No wonder Washburne suffers from high blood pressure. He has been the Symington family lawyer for 20 years. Most of that time, he helped manage Martha Symington’s fortune from…

For most of the past seven weeks, Governor J. Fife Symington III has spent his days in U.S. District Court busy scribbling in a black, loose-leaf binder, seldom raising his head. But on Friday, June 27, Symington leaned back in his chair, stared at the witness and jury and thoroughly…

Every day, television news crews form a gauntlet outside the federal courthouse, waiting to fire questions at the attorneys in Governor J. Fife Symington III’s criminal trial. The governor’s lead defense attorney, John Dowd, is always eager to feed the media horde with bombastic comments, animated expressions and occasional profanity…

Jim Cockerham’s reluctant testimony during the fifth week of Governor J. Fife Symington III’s criminal trial exploded yet another Symington myth: that he was a successful developer who got blindsided by a collapsing real estate market. Not so, testified Cockerham, who was chief financial officer of The Symington Company. In…

Terry Lynam, one of Governor J. Fife Symington III’s defense attorneys, sauntered down the federal courthouse steps wearing a big smile. He was delighted because the defense had scored what he believed were significant points during another round of mind-numbing testimony at Symington’s criminal trial. The testimony had centered on…

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…