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…

Governor J. Fife Symington III’s criminal case may be decided as much by the type of cars and window shades jurors prefer as by the labyrinth of financial statements and bank memos that the jurors will see. Symington’s defense team has gone to great lengths and expense to develop a…

Arizona Governor J. Fife Symington III finds himself in U.S. District Court, facing 22 felony counts that could strip him of his job and send him to prison for decades. How did it come to this? It’s simple. He lied. He lied some more. And then he lied about the…

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has released records revealing that a company controlled by a business partner of Governor J. Fife Symington III’s family has been under scrutiny by the agency for more than two decades. The company, GAC Produce Company, Inc., is controlled by Alejandro Canelos Rodriguez, a Culiacan,…

Second of Two Parts The traditional Hopi knew all along. For nearly 50 years, their pleas to the federal government to prevent mining in the heart of their homeland on Black Mesa have been ignored. Hopi religious leaders, the Kikmongwi, beseeched President Harry Truman in 1949 to forbid such atrocity…

First of Two Parts Eighty-two-year-old Valjean Joshvema leans forward in his chair and sings a Hopi prophecy that has come to pass. The ageless Hopi lyrics foretell of an era when the Hopi will wander the high desert mesas they and their ancestors have occupied for 12 millenniums. According to…

In a reversal, the U.S. State Department has issued a one-year visa to a Mexican businessman with close ties to the family of Governor J. Fife Symington III. The businessman, Alejandro Canelos Rodriguez, has been suspected by the U.S. Customs Service of being involved in drug trafficking. State Department spokeswoman…

With jury selection for Governor J. Fife Symington III’s criminal trial only weeks away, Symington’s bankruptcy attorney last week manufactured a bombshell that the Arizona Republic obligingly splashed on its front page. The story contained numerous inaccuracies. After New Times brought the errors to the Republic’s attention on Monday, the…

Contaminated soil and groundwater beneath the site of a proposed seven-story parking garage are driving up costs of a project already over budget and embroiled in controversy. The structure would cover nearly five acres across Jefferson Street from the $351 million Bank One Ballpark. The stadium is scheduled to be…

U.S. law enforcers face an overwhelming task in staunching the flow of illicit drugs from Mexico into the United States. At border towns such as Nogales, a handful of officers is confronted with a huge volume of cross-border pedestrian, automobile and truck traffic each day. And this doesn’t include the…

Governor J. Fife Symington III’s family has extensive personal and financial ties to a Mexican businessman who cannot enter the United States because of persistent drug-trafficking allegations, New Times has learned. The U.S. Customs Service has compiled intelligence that Alejandro Canelos Rodriguez, a Sinaloa produce farmer, shipper and distributor, may…

After 13 years of participation in task forces with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the state Department of Public Safety has withdrawn its officers from the multi-agency effort. The move continues DPS’ eight-month trend of scaling back narcotics enforcement. The state’s largest police agency has been strapped for funds since…

Although Governor J. Fife Symington III is bankrupt, cash is never a worry for him. When Symington needed $1.5 million to run for governor in 1990, he got it from his mother and his wife. When legal bills related to his pending criminal trial surged past $600,000, Symington’s wife, Ann,…

It was quite a going-away party for one of the state’s top cops. Nearly 300 people, including scores of the state’s leading police officials, packed into the Fraternal Order of Police lodge on January 25 to acknowledge the outstanding career of Rodney Covey, an Arizona Department of Public Safety lieutenant…

The taxi comes to a halt on a two-lane paved road bisecting Villa Juarez, a bustling, peasant farming town in the heart of one of Mexico’s most fertile farming valleys. A herd of cattle blocks the road, paralyzing traffic on this busy farm highway about 25 miles south of Culiacan,…

O.J., DeLorean, North — and Symington? At first blush, the federal government’s 23-count criminal indictment against Arizona Governor J. Fife Symington III appears to be a devastating document. The indictment charges that Symington knowingly misled five lenders about his financial health in connection with nearly $150 million in loans for…

There’s not much to sustain life–water, grass or other feed–on the eastern flank of the Four Peaks Wilderness Area, 60 miles east of Phoenix. Last May, the Lone Fire scorched 60,000 acres there, including prime wildlife habitat. The 30,000-acre 3 Bar Wildlife Area was particularly hard hit. Ponderosa pines were…

The story sounds diabolical. For more than a decade, a Tucson nonprofit drug-treatment center called Amity, Inc., had slowly developed a glowing international reputation for helping drug addicts. Amity’s apparent success was cited in a 1995 front-page story in the New York Times. Walter Cronkite waxed eloquent about the program…

Last Friday’s settlement between the Big 6 accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand and federal prosecutors delivers a powerful legal blow to Governor J. Fife Symington III. What Coopers & Lybrand disclosed in a remarkable six-page press release, which was jointly prepared with federal prosecutors, is devastating to Symington’s defense…

Volunteers: Expect to spend 5 plus hours/day radio-tracking and 8 hours searching for (rattle)snakes. Field conditions and work loads are exceptionally harsh. You will live two miles from the nearest trail/road in a large canvas tent w/cots/tables/cook stove and few comforts. Water is extremely limited . . . There is…

Governor J. Fife Symington III is all but surrounded. Creditors who allege he committed fraud are seeking to prevent him from erasing $25 million of debts in bankruptcy court. One creditor has even raised the suggestion in court filings that the governor used a front company to hide assets. The…

Times have long been tough at the Valley’s No. 2 daily newspaper chain, the East Valley’s Tribune Newspapers. They may be about to get tougher. The occasionally feisty papers that provide the Valley’s only significant daily alternative to the Arizona Republic are tough places to work. Reporters and editors get…