A former state trooper claims he was falsely accused of crimes and fired last year after a brief fling with the daughter of the state Department of Public Safety’s director. Geoffrey Jacobs, a six-year veteran and former pilot with the DPS, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday that accuses the agency and its director of violating his civil rights…
County officials say they aren’t sure what the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is talking about when it comes to yesterday’s serious, but vague, allegation against a County Supervisor. But Jim Bloom, executive assistant for Supervisor Andrew Kunasek, says he “categorically denies” the allegation that Kunasek swiped $15,000 in public funds…
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is demanding that county risk managers review “evidence” of criminal acts by county officials before settling any claims by those officials. The demand comes in a strongly worded news release and letter by Chief Deputy David Hendershott that accuses County Supervisor Andrew Kunasek of stealing $15,000…
Phoenix prosecutor Will Gonzalez says he’s “fascinated” by the case of Marcos Mejia, the 42-year-old graffiti vandal who recently received a one-year jail sentence for tagging. Not only is that the toughest punishment ever given to someone in the city’s history for a graffiti crime, Gonzalez says, but it’s plain “odd” to…
A federal jury yesterday handed a guilty verdict to Rick Renzi’s accountant, Dwayne Lequire, for embezzling $796,000 from the former Congressman’s company — and conspiring with Renzi to do it. He faces up to 85 years in prison when he’s sentenced on October 18. The disgraced, former Republican Congressman from Tucson still faces…
A judge last month sentenced a Maryvale graffiti tagger to one year behind bars, the harshest sentence in the city’s history for a graffiti crime. Marcos Domingo Mejia, 42, who police described as a longtime gang member, was charged with dozens of counts of vandalizing after his arrest in January of 2009. Though…
The CEO of Republic Monetary Exchange may be an ex-con, but that doesn’t mean the gold-selling company itself is untrustworthy, says a manager for the Phoenix-based firm. James Clark, who shares the name of his CEO father, took issue with the article New Times published today about gold and some…
Like many gold sellers, Republic Monetary Exchange LLC focuses much of its advertising on conservatives. While many businesses bend over backward to avoid offending people, the firm’s chief executive, Jim Clark, wears his right-wing politics — literally — to basketball games. Late in the afternoon one day in mid-June, Clark…
Last year was a tough one for the We Care Clinic of Phoenix, a small, private practice rocked by a high-profile scandal involving a woman who posed as a doctor. The Arizona Attorney General’s slammed the woman, Olena “Helen” Kulakova, and a real doctor who worked at the clinic,…
A recent headline in the right-wing blog Sonoran Alliance that claims the Arizona Republic has a “blackout” of coverage for the 2010 race for Maricopa County Attorney seems to be accurate. An archive search shows the state’s largest newspaper has written almost nothing about the Republican candidates’ competitive race for…
Former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo pulled his endorsement of Tom Horne for Arizona Attorney General today, saying he now supports Andrew Thomas. The anti-illegal-immigrant (or just anti-immigrant) Republican hardliner says in a news release by Thomas that he simply didn’t do his research before lending his name to Horne’s campaign. Horne…
Gannett Company, the parent company of the Arizona Republic, launched pay walls for three of its newspapers yesterday, charging Internet users to look at the papers’ content. The new, pay-to-read format at the Tallahassee Democrat, The Greenville News in South Carolina and The Spectrum of St. George, Utah tests the…
Just when it seems like smuggling violence can’t get any worse comes news of a slaughter just south of Nogales, Mexico: 21 dead, at least six wounded in a massive gun battle. Media outlets are reporting that the skirmish between rival gangs took place Thursday morning on a dirt road…
Residents of Scottsdale and Tempe who want to know the locations for recent crimes can go to an info-sharing, map Web site fed by police data. The RAIDS Online site provides a mapping service for several PDs across the country, including the two east Valley cities. We spent a few minutes…
Harold Hurtt, a former Phoenix police chief, has been selected as a national community liaison for the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE hired him as the new director for its Office of State and Local Coordination in Washington D.C., where he’ll work on “outreach and communication” between ICE and local cop shops,…
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to hire dispute expert Kenneth Feinberg to handle claims against the county by county officials and employees. Feinberg has a solid reputation as a legal referee. He’s the Obama-appointed “pay czar,” (monitoring the pay of executives who work…
The Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct has dismissed all four complaints filed against local judges by David Hendershott, chief deputy under Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The commission “found no clear and convincing evidence of ethical misconduct” and voted to dismiss the complaints, a June 18 letter from the…
Sunday’s Arizona Republic story about Tom Horne wasn’t the first time the candidate for Attorney General has been asked about a decades-old bankuptcy and government sanction. As Horne reminded us today, Republic reporter Pat Kossan wrote an article in 2002 about his failed business venture from long ago, which resulted in his being…
Augustus Shaw, Republican candidate for State Representative, has been kicked out of the race by a judge because he doesn’t live in the right district. The ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Edward Burke prohibits Shaw’s name from appearing on the primary ballot in Tempe’s District 17 this year. Shaw lives a…
Elsa Lynch, a longtime judge and court administrator in Paradise Valley who abruptly retired last summer, has received a sentence of one year’s probation for theft of government benefits. As we reported in January, Lynch was indicted by a federal grand jury a few weeks after “retiring” from her position last July…
The mood at the courtroom hearing was light.Maricopa County Judge Edward Burke cracked jokes about Augustus Shaw’s lack of hair, Shaw smiled and waved to the man hired to spy on his family.But the weirdest part had to be the very subject of the hearing itself — an absurd attempt…
Augustus Shaw, a Republican running for State Legislature, failed to close out a political action committee he started when he ran for Tempe City Council in 2004, officials say. Because of state campaign-finance laws, Shaw should have either terminated the PAC or filed finance reports each a year. Because he’s done neither since…
