Gravely ill and severely disabled?Real sorry about that, but you should still be thrown in jail for using marijuana, says a ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals…
Karl “Jack” Frost admits he tried to make a citizen’s arrest of a man who was jogging in a bike lane, but that Gilbert police got most of the story wrong.Frost, 47, says the main notion he wants to dispel is that he was in illegal possession of a .40-caliber…
Few things tick off Karl “Jack” Frost more than pedestrians in a bike lane, apparently.Frost, a 47-year-old Chandler resident, tried to make a “citizen’s arrest” on a 52-year-old Chandler man who was jogging in a bike lane yesterday, Gilbert police say…
How’s this for irony in literature:A state summer-reading list’s Web link to a site about George Orwell states that accessing the page may result in “malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent.” Orwellian, no? But instead of the pervasive government that Orwell deemed “Big Brother” in his famous…
Famed teachers of Buddhism and yoga Christie McNally and Michael Roach are at the heart of a strange tale of the death of McNally’s husband, Ian Thorson, last month in a desert cave.Roach and McNally, who were said in a 2008 New York Times story to have a “growing following,”…
Every now and then, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer raises her lips from the conservative feeding trough and spits something out.Last year, she halted the passage of a bill that would have required presidential candidates to prove they were eligible for the post before their names would have been placed on…
Tori Vance, who was crowned Miss Arizona Teen USA in 2010, was arrested on suspicion of DUI in Los Angeles last weekend. Media reports state that Vance, who’s from Ahwatukee, made an illegal U-turn in Hollywood on Saturday night and was pulled over. Her blood-alcohol level tested at higher than…
The state opened the door for medical-marijuana dispensary applications yesterday, receiving 15 by the end of the day. Hopeful pot-shop owners will have until 5 p.m. on May 25 to submit the applications. Besides paying a $5,000 application fee, weed-trepeneurs must include a business plan and details on how they’ll…
Daniel Garcia, the new Phoenix police chief sworn in yesterday, promises to bring “love” to the department.Garcia’s a former assistant police chief from the Dallas Police Department. He’s a 30-year police veteran and speaks Spanish. Yesterday, he told the news media: “I promise you… I will take the love I…
Rachel Alexander, acolyte of former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, has filed a notice of claim against Maricopa County for $67,000 to cover the legal fees of the appeal of her law-license suspension.Alexander, along with Thomas and former deputy county attorney Lisa Aubuchon, was disciplined for their bad ethics in…
Lisa Aubuchon has managed to eke out a three-week stay of her disbarment.After being told by the state Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Judge that her “staggering mountain of wrongdoing” means she would be officially stripped of her law license today, the Court’s duty justice, Robert Brutinel, granted her a temporary stay.Brutinel…
A “staggering mountain of wrongdoing” by former county prosecutor Lisa Aubuchon was cited by a judge as one general reason to deny her request for stay of disbarment.Aubuchon and her former boss, ex-County Attorney Andrew Thomas, were disbarred on April 10 for a series of ethical violations related to their…
Mark Goldman, the wealthy lawyer buddy of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and disgraced former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, is seeking votes in a State Bar of Arizona election.He’s one of eight candidates vying for the Maricopa County District position on the State Bar’s Board of Governors, which oversees Bar…
A $500,000 loan to a Colorado company intended for a medical-marijuana facility doesn’t have to be paid back because pot is illegal under federal law, a county judge has ruled.The bombshell ruling, (tip of the hat to lawyer Richard Keyt’s medical-marijuana blog), has major implications for the budding dispensary industry…
Former proseuctor Lisa Aubuchon and her husband, Peter Pestalozzi, owe $40,721 in federal taxes, records show.The federal tax lien listed on the Maricopa County Recorder’s website includes $3,388 in unpaid taxes for 2009 and $37,332 for 2010.Aubuchon, who was disbarred on April 10 along with her former County Attorney boss,…
As of Thursday, Andrew Thomas, Lisa Aubuchon, and Rachel Alexander no longer will be able to practice law in Arizona.A disciplinary panel of the Arizona Supreme Court ordered the trio’s disbarment on April 10, and court officials stated that the order would become effective on May 10. The former Maricopa…
Andrew Thomas could be forced to pay $554,000 for the disciplinary proceeding that resulted in his disbarment. (UPDATED: The amount was first filed as $296,300, as we reported earlier today. The State Bar just informed us that an amended bill will be filed tomorrow with the new, higher amount. We’ll…
This caught our attention on a recent visit to downtown Phoenix locales. Several of the signs were taped to a wall on West Adams Street, just north of the Wells Fargo Plaza…
The former head of the Mesa Police Association, Javier Fabian Cota, accuses San Diego police in a federal lawsuit of violating his rights during a June 4 arrest for alleged public drunkenness.Cota’s story of gettomg thrown in a drunk tank that night, which resulted in a demotion and pay cut…
A new report from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says that 68,000 guns seized by Mexico in recent years came from the United States.But an ATF official in Washington D.C. admits the agency has no idea how many guns Mexico seizes overall, or whether the 68,000…
Twenty-seven years ago, a 40-year-old named Luis Gonzales, was struck and killed by a train near Central Avenue.The man had no identification except for a workplace time card that contained his name and the wrong date of birth, which pegged him as a 53-year-old.Another Luis Gonzales with that birthdate was…
Lawyers for Maricopa County and Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox have agreed on a schedule to present their court arguments for why the county should pay Wilcox a $975,000 settlement. As one of the targets of failed investigations by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, Wilcox is suing the sheriff…
