Outside Phoenix’s Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse on Tuesday, opponents of Sheriff Joe Arpaio serenaded passersby with live mariachi music, chanted “Arrest Arpaio, not the people,” and unveiled a giant balloon depicting their nemesis in handcuffs and stripes. But inside the courthouse, by the the end of a five-hour session,…
Today, in a preview of a high-stakes hearing on Tuesday, May 31, in the contempt case of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and three of his subordinates, the ACLU filed a memorandum asking U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow to make a referral to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, asking for an investigation…
A Louisiana man’s life ended Wednesday after a swarm of bees attacked him and a companion in Usery Mountain Regional Park, just northwest of Apache Junction. Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies say 23-year-old Alex Bestler and a friend were hiking Merkle Trail when the swarm attacked unprovoked. The friend made it…
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich waded into the nation’s tumultuous transgender-bathroom fray, announcing Wednesday that Arizona is one of 11 states with public officials suing the Obama administration regarding recent guidelines on how public schools should treat transgender students. The lawsuit, brought in U.S. District Court in Texas, claims the…
For years, I and other critics of Joe Arpaio have borne witness to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s trashing of people’s constitutional rights, his violations of the law, his general megalomania. And we all want one thing: justice. That has been difficult to obtain, even as Arpaio’s support has eroded, as…
Former border vigilante Chris Simcox probably won’t be getting any Father’s Day cards in jail, judging from the testimony of three of his daughters on Monday, during the Minuteman Project co-founder’s ongoing trial on six counts of child molestation and furnishing pornography to minors. Two of the daughters who took the…
Shitcanned. A local TV news outlet has fired one of its top reporters after he was arrested for public defecation. CBS 5 (KPHO) news director Dan Wilson confirmed to New Times via e-mail today that reporter Jonathan Lowe “no longer works for the station.” When New Times wrote about the bizarre incident,…
Former border vigilante Chris Simcox came face to face with one of his accusers in a Phoenix court on Wednesday, May 18: a pretty, 8-year-old girl with long brown hair, who likes to read and used to play with Simcox’s two daughters, who are about her age. She testified about…
Goodyear Police arrested CBS 5 journo Jonathan Lowe Monday afternoon while he was on assignment, reporting on a former Arizona State University football player who allegedly sacrificed the family dog by putting him in a smoker in order to appease an angry God. That doesn’t begin to explain the kind…
Asked to handicap the upcoming political throwdown between GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and the Democrats’ inevitable pick, Hillary Clinton, porn titan Larry Flynt delivers a wry one-liner in that inimitable, gravely voice of his: “Hillary could beat Trump from jail.” Flynt, who’ll turn 74 this fall, will be in…
Supporters of a Catholic high school teacher who has been lambasted for a controversial anti-abortion handout he distributed in class are speaking out in his defense and have started a petition to counter one calling for him to be removed from the classroom. Since New Times first wrote about a…
In a 162-page ruling issued, ominously, on Friday the 13th, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow found Sheriff Joe Arpaio guilty on three counts of civil contempt and left the door open to criminal prosecution. Snow also found Arpaio’s chief deputy, Jerry Sheridan, guilty on two counts of civil contempt…
An angry Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich told reporters on Thursday that Secretary of State Michele Reagan “did indeed violate Arizona law” in not sending out hundreds of thousands of publicity pamphlets regarding Tuesday’s special election. But the AG said he won’t go into court to stop the election from…
Online petitioners are demanding that a local Catholic school teacher be removed from the classroom for what they call “racist and sexist hate speech.” The petition, which has garnered more than 2,500 signatures (and counting) over the past couple of days, alleges that an instructor at Phoenix’s Xavier College Preparatory,…
For a showcase of gross incompetence on behalf of public officialdom, it doesn’t get much better than the March 28 hearing of the Arizona House Elections Committee. In the pillory that day before a packed-to-overflowing room of angry citizens sans pitchforks was Republican Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell, a prim,…
Democrat Kyrsten Sinema raised eyebrows at a recent East Valley Partnership luncheon in Mesa, by stating that she hopes right-wing ideologue and Republican state senate president Andy Biggs wins in Arizona’s deeply red Fifth Congressional District this year. The U.S. Representative for Arizona’s Ninth Congressional District was onstage, participating in…
Talk about bad timing. In an election year rife with anti-immigrant sentiment, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol statistics show that apprehensions of unaccompanied minors from Central America have spiked to levels near those in the first six months of fiscal year 2014, when the issue became a political football and a…
Asked whether he’ll be Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, should the presumptive GOP presidential nominee KO the Dems’ best shot at the White House, Hillary Clinton, in the fall, Arizona’s Treasurer Jeff DeWit chuckles. “Nah, I like my job,” DeWit says. “I don’t think so.” That’s a somewhat odd answer. After…
As an otherwise staid Arizona Republican Convention in Mesa wrapped up Saturday, Donald Trump’s campaign chair in Arizona, State Treasurer Jeff DeWit, sputtered into what best can be described as a Trump-style meltdown. Enraged by the results of an electronic election held that afternoon for 28 at-large delegates at the…
At least one candidate for the GOP primary nod in the First Congressional District is not going to let Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu skate on his sleazy record: retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Wendy Rogers. In video obtained by New Times of a February candidates’ forum held at a…
A cornucopia of meth, heroin, ecstasy, and other drugs, along with $7,000 in cash and evidence of drug-making equipment allegedly were seized by authorities this week at a Phoenix residence shared by a high-powered GOP fundraiser, her boyfriend, and his two young children. According to probable-cause statements on file with…
Supporters of Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders will have to suck it up. There will be no do-over of Arizona’s disastrous Presidential Preference Election. Following two days of testimony this week, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge booted a lawsuit claiming fraud, illegal voting and other improprieties in the contest,…
