We will know in a few days if Michael Marin, the onetime attorney and Wall Street trader now on trial for allegedly torching his Biltmore Estates mansion, will be taking the stand in his own defense. County prosecutors have been trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Marin burned down the…
We were around in 1988 when Rose Mofford, Arizona’s longtime Secretary of State, ascended to the Governor’s office after the impeachment of Evan Mecham, a Glendale car dealer whose tenure was a (yet another) national embarassment. Well before she became governor, we had known Rose as an accessible government official who personally…
The soap opera that the Arizona Diamondbacks have become will be a thing of the past if this recently dysfunctional bunch keeps kicking ass like they did last night. The D-Backs routed the Colorado Rockies for the second straight night, this time by a count of 6-1. Paul Goldschmidt is…
We had the pleasure several years ago of attending a talk in Tempe by one of our all-time favorite writers, Mr. Ray Bradbury. He was a terrific speaker, funny, topical and full of piss and vinegar about the sorry state of things in modern-day American culture. He spoke eloquently about the genesis…
Fired Pinal County sheriff’s Deputy Louie Puroll’s closed-door attempt to win his job back continues this morning down in Florence. As we wrote yesterday afternoon, Puroll has chosen to keep the prying eyes and ears of the public out of the Merit Commission hearing room, which means we can’t tell…
Just back from a trip to Pinal County, where former sheriff’s Deputy Louie Puroll is seeking reinstatement to his job at a hearing of the county’s Merit Commission. Bottom line: Puroll this morning in Florence exercised his right to have the hearing closed to the public. This meant TV cameras had to…
Richard Dawson, the acerbic, but playful host of Family Feud for so many years, died yesterday at the age of 79. Our connection to Dawson was this: He was best buddies with Bob Crane, star of the prisoner-of-war sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, on which Dawson played mouthy sidekick Corporal Peter Newkirk. And…
Women’s college softball is terrific these days — these girls can really play ball, and they all look so damn coachable. So, natch, it’s very hard to win a national championship, no matter the level, no matter the sport, and Division I fast-pitch definitely is no exception. The Arizona State…
You will remember the quirky case of Michael Marin if you read our paper regularly, but here is the link to the original story, “Burning Man,” about the man, the fire and the repercussions, which now include a prison term for Marin if the jury at his criminal trial in downtown Phoenix…
Back in the day, we had several occasions to bat against Mike White, a native New Zealander who happened to be one of the greatest fastpitch-softball pitchers of all-time. Whitey wasn’t a big guy, but he had great command of all of his pitches, and was an absolutely fierce competitor. …
It was October 1989 when we went to the Arizona State Fair for a boxing card that included our friend Michael Carbajal, then an up-and-comer straight from the Olympic Games in South Korea one year earlier. On the undercard was a 22-year-old from Albuquerque who weighed in at 115 pounds,…
The defending national champion ASU Sun Devils softball team will have to beat tough Louisiana-Lafayette twice tonight to advance to the College World Series in Oklahoma City.That, after the Ragin’ Cajuns routed the Devils 6-0 last night in Tempe in the first of the best-of-three Super Regionals series. The big…
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen reversed field yesterday, ruling that I can sit in his courtroom and report on what’s happening in the quirky arson case of State of Arizona v. Michael Marin. Earlier in the week, the judge booted me out of court at the request of…
As we write this, the attorneys litigating the arson case of State of Arizona v. Michael Marin are presenting their opening statements to a Maricopa County jury in downtown Phoenix. We planned on blogging about the opposing sides’ hope to show in their efforts to win a conviction of the…
Mike Kiefer, a longtime colleague of ours and (more important) a longtime friend, writes these days for the Arizona Republic, mostly about bad guys in trouble down at the Maricopa County Superior Court and elsewhere. Mike is a fine reporter and a true wordsmith (we know one when we read one,…
Big day for local women’s college sports yesterday, specifically fastpitch softball, a sport near and dear to our heart.First, the big-time (i.e. Division I) news: Arizona State moved on to the Super-Regionals as the solar eclipse faded into the night, beating scrappy Syracuse 4-0 in the elimination “if” game in Tempe.Sophomore…
Remember the quirky case of onetime Wall Street broker, Yale Law School-educated attorney, art collector and man about town Michael Marin, who was accused in 2009 of criminally torching his Biltmore Estates mansion? Trial time for Michael Marin–finally. The highly publicized case perhaps was most notable for how Marin said…
Last year, former New Times news blogger James King wrote about Wade Ridley’s arrest and subsequent confession to the February 2011 north Phoenix machete/butcher knife murder of his girlfriend, Anne Simenson. Ridley was charged with first-degree murder in Maricopa County Superior Court, but the local case still was awaiting disposition…
May be apples and oranges on some level, but yesterday’s bust of State Representative Ben Arredondo after a fairly elaborate FBI sting, got us to thinking about Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his onetime henchman (i.e. chief deputy) Dave Hendershott. The federal indictment against the veteran Tempe pol claims that he…
Lots of stories on the radio and Internet Sunday honoring what would have been the 100th birthday of iconic jazz arranger, pianist, and bandleader Gil Evans. Evans died in 1988 at age 75 after a career that most famously included his seminal work with trumpet player Miles Davis — Sketches of Spain and Quiet…
In early March, shortly after the sex-and-‘deportation’ scandal that enveloped Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu hit the news, his chief deputy, Steve Henry, fulfilled a speaking engagement in Las Vegas at the annual convention of the Western States Sheriff’s Association. At the time, the telegenic and articulate Henry was heir…
Some would say that Grant Goodman caught a break yesterday when a disciplinary hearing panel suspended him from the practice of law for only two years after finding that the Phoenix attorney violated several Rules of Professional Conduct–exploiting “vulnerable individuals” and lying to the court among them Readers of our paper…
