Maricopa County sheriff’s deputy Roy Cook stepped into Judge Donald Daughton’s courtroom on the morning of January 11 and surveyed the scene. Two middle-aged people sat at respective tables facing the judge. Cook was there because Daughton — who presides over the Superior Court’s Probate and Mental Health Department –…
On September 30, 1998, Perry Mitchell’s supervisors at Maricopa County Superior Court evaluated him: “Perry is well positioned to lead the further expansion of Pretrial Services, planned for the next few years, and his future with the court is very bright!” One year later, however, things changed drastically for Mitchell,…
A judge has sided with the Phoenix-based Hypercom Corporation against an ex-employee who claimed the company bought her silence after a top executive raped her. Superior Court Judge Edward Burke issued his 17-page ruling November 22 after a two-day hearing in the case. New Times published a story on the…
Lorraine DeJongh Gamble wheels her husband of almost one year into the Lakes Club in Sun City. “Good evening, Commander,” the maitre d’ greets Edward Gamble, who sits ramrod straight in his chair, nattily attired in a bola tie and blue blazer. “And happy birthday to you, sir.” Actually, Gamble’s…
New Mexico record producer and piano player Norman Petty jotted some advice for his pals Buddy Holly and the Crickets in the summer of 1957. The red-hot band was about to embark on its first trip to New York City, and road warrior Petty felt obliged to help. In a…
Colleen Ryan Smith claims she was raped three times by a top executive of Phoenix’s Hypercom Corporation. The Scottsdale resident was one of Hypercom’s 1,000 employees, about 500 of whom work in the Valley. Hypercom is a big, if little-known, company. Its revenues reached nearly $200 million in 1997. Hypercom…
We do not have gangs here,” a Latino leader said on October 20 during a contentious meeting of about 100 people at a south Phoenix community center. The speaker, Art Luera, chairs the Barrio Unidos Fight Back Committee. Ironically, the City of Phoenix organized the group a few years ago…
Boulder, Colorado Alex Hunter retreats to his office after one of the biggest press conferences of his life. It’s October 14, 1999, and the Boulder County district attorney has just been grilled about the JonBenet Ramsey murder case in front of a live national audience. The day before, Hunter had…
A few years ago, U-Haul founder L.S. Shoen finally stopped sending me copies of his interminable missives to his dozen children. I’d gotten on his extensive mailing list in the late 1980s, while preparing a story about the haunted House of Shoen. Written before the word “dysfunctional” became vogue, the…
It is almost 10 p.m. in south Phoenix, and a police gang squad unit spots three black teenagers standing on a street corner. The officers recognize one of the youngsters, a lanky kid wearing several gold chains over his blue Dallas Cowboys jersey. “He’s a banger,” one cop says. “Let’s…
On my belly they lay the blue strings You know what that means Here comes my family On their faces I see pain Thinkin’ in my head I’m the one to blame And now it’s over They close the casket And my son just became a goddamn bastard How many…
Dapper in his suit and freshly shined shoes, Marcus Giavanni strides into the New Times offices with his wife Celina and 6-month-old son, Atouro. He’s also proudly toting a 484-page hardcover book entitled Nelson vs. the United States of America: A System in Denial, which went into print late last…
The Sleepwalker Murder Case may be over, but one question continues to captivate the public: Is it true that Scott Falater talked about a 1980s Canadian sleepwalking murder case with colleagues at Motorola before the murder? The short answer: no. This story within the story–what had Falater been chatting about,…
They’re not with us,” Scott Falater whispered moments before the prosecutor began his closing argument in the Sleepwalker Murder Case. Falater gestured toward the jury box, soon to be filled with citizens who would decide his fate. The 43-year-old Phoenician reminded his listener about something he’d said during an interview…
Mary C.’s husband bought her a computer for Mother’s Day. She’s interested in the Internet, but for now she’ll get her feet wet by playing solitaire. Mary would like to show her 8-year-old daughter, Hope, how to use the machine someday, if Arizona child-welfare authorities would only let her. Mary…
Of the many scenes I’ll take with me from the Phoenix Coyotes’ 1998-99 hockey season, this one first comes to mind: It happened on Easter morning. It was a rainy, cold day, and inclement weather would cause cancellation of the Tradition golf tournament a few miles north of the Ice…
Disbarred attorney and ex-con Dick Berry stood before federal judge Robert Broomfield on Monday afternoon, trying to talk his way out of jail. Berry’s excuses were the same as they’ve been for more than two years, after Bankruptcy Court officials started coming down on him and his Tempe-based business, People’s…
[Derian Hatcher] played only two minutes, 57 seconds, but his hit on Jeremy Roenick was an important action for the captain to take, and it set the physical tone. –Bill Nichols, Dallas Morning News, April 15, 1999 Phoenix Coyotes at Dallas Stars April 14, 1999 The Phoenix Coyotes’ dreams this…
Career con man Stephen Charles Peterson sat in a Maricopa County courtroom last Friday afternoon shackled to several other jail inmates. If he weren’t wearing a black-and-white striped jail suit, the physically imposing, bespectacled 57-year-old would have fit right in among the attorneys waiting to process their clients’ criminal cases…
Joe Zawinul is discussing the kinship between musicians and boxers. “When I see a fighter, like when I hear someone play music, I know right away if the motherfucker has got it or not,” he says gruffly, his Austrian accent still strong after four decades in the States. Aware that…
It’s rare for an appellate judge to speak publicly about any pending case, much less one that may end up in his court someday. So it made for a good news story on February 26 when the chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court invoked a high-profile South Phoenix gang-rape…
Jan Solomon made two huge mistakes in early 1997. First, the Scottsdale man–then 57–resumed a romance with a woman he had dated when both were in their teens. Trouble was, both were married. Second, he attempted to hire someone to kill his paramour’s husband. Luckily, the would-be hit man contacted…
