Looking pale and uncharacteristically gun-shy, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas approached the podium in his office’s eighth-floor conference room, fully prepared to say his handpicked special prosecutor had acted inappropriately. Following the arrests of New Times founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin (Village Voice Media’s executive editor and chairman/CEO), ferocious…
PUSH MEETS SHOVE Kick Joe, Andy, and Dennis to the curb: After reading the article on the grand jury subpoenas and watching the press conference announcing that the charges against Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin were dropped, I felt something must be done — and done now — to stop…
The old warehouse on South Fourth Avenue was a rarity for Phoenix, and not just because it’s a cavernous old building in a city that has so few of them. What really made it unusual: It was a place to rave in a town where raving is hard to do…
No surprise today that Judge Anna Baca unsealed all the records of the grand jury in the New Times case. Actually, according to her, there was technically no grand jury yet, so the stuff wasn’t really secret! (Huh?) Specifically, she said that is was OK for her to release the…
Check this video of Tuesday’s press conference by County Attorney Andrew Thomas, featuring his fake outrage about the Arizona Republic having a link online to a County Recorder document listing his address and the name of his four kids. Okay, so if you were really worried about the safety of…
Ankarlo not only digs smooching the Sheriff’s butt, he also enjoys the occasional snack. I didn’t really have time to be on KTAR today, engaging in verbal fisticuffs with the Mormon-owned radio station’s premier right-wing lip-flapper. But the offer was hard to turn down for two reasons: 1) I’m addicted…
Enjoy this delicious video of County Attorney Candy “Babyface” Thomas admitting to a major eff-up yesterday in the effort to prosecute New Times by using his private attack-schnauzer Dennis Wilencheckbook, who’s reportedly earned nearly $2 mil of the public’s dough working for former employee Thomas. Check out the very end…
County Attorney Thomas, admitting major mistakes and backing off the criminal prosecution of New Times. In a stunning capitulation to an overwhelming public backlash, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced in a press conference this afternoon charges against New Times founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin are being dismissed and…
VVM Executive Editor Michael Lacey talking to reporters earlier this a.m. after being released from MCSO custody. Village Voice Media Executive Editor Michael Lacey was released from PHX’s 4th Avenue Jail around 4 a.m. this morning after being arrested Thursday evening by plainclothes agents of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office…
New Times founders Jim Larkin (left) and Michael Lacey (right), now under arrest. Plainclothes Maricopa County Sheriff’s officers arrested New Times founders, Village Voice Media Executive Editor Michael Lacey and Chairman/CEO Jim Larkin at their homes late Thursday evening for revealing grand jury information in their recent story Grand Jury…
The iron fist in the velvet glove: Smoothie Judge Burke crushes the C.A. and Wilenchik’s 10.1 motion like it was an empty Pepsi can. In a quick ruling on yesterday’s 10.1 hearing in which County Attorney Candy Thomas’ well-paid attack schnauzer Dennis “Demon Dog” Wilenchik asked for Judge Timothy Ryan…
Member papers of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN) this week are providing links on their websites that direct their readers to the many places on the Internet where the home address of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is listed. AAN papers are doing so to show solidarity with the…
DICTATOR JOE Dont massage Arpaios fantasies: Dictators finally succumb to total paranoia — it’s the natural result of a totalitarian mind and a numbed-out psyche unable to do anything useful with guilt (“Sheriff Fidel,” The Bird, Stephen Lemons, October 11. Also see The Bird this week and “Keystone Coppers: The…
What is it with the Mexican hang-up on body parts? When General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was struck by a cannonball at the knee in one of his 8,000 wars, his right leg was removed from the knee down. When he returned to Mexico City, he ordered that a…
It’s official. The former Soviet Union’s freer, kinder, and safer for the indigent and the sick than Maricopa County. What other conclusion can this dodo draw from news that TB-sufferer Robert Daniels has fled the police state of Uncle Joe Arpaio for Moscow, Russia, former home of commie dictator Uncle…
All summer long, I fantasized about bulldozers, which doesn’t make much sense. After all, I’m one of those unfortunate souls who both live and work in the light-rail construction zone, a.k.a. hell. At least once a day, I make an illegal left turn after getting stuck behind some giant earthmover…
This newspaper and its editorial staff — both current and former — are the targets of unprecedented grand jury subpoenas dated August 24. The authorities are also using the grand jury subpoenas in an attempt to research the identity, purchasing habits, and browsing proclivities of our online readership. It is,…
Published online October 19, 2007, 4:00 p.m. MST At a press conference on Friday afternoon, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced that all charges against New Times, its owners, editors and writers have been dropped — and that special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik has been dismissed. The shocking move came a…
The Wily One, minus his trademark granny-glasses. Today I stared into the piercing pupils of PHX’s legal Demon Dog, the Bane of the Blackrobes, that Pugnacious Pit-Bull of Jurisprudence, Dennis, “the Menace” Wilenchik. And as Nietzsche once wrote of “the Abyss,” The Wily One stared back. OK, that’s a little…
Candy “Babyface” Thomas, minus his Dirty Sanchez mustache. Amazing that the Arizona Capitol Times buried this story on page 8 of their current issue: “State Bar files ethics complaint against County Attorney.” (Sorry there’s no link: you have to be a subscriber.) The piece offers a recap of the ongoing…
The MCSO’s Wells Fargo building brain trust, getting the tip-off on yet another Arpaio assassination “plot.” Somewhere Max Sennett’s skeleton’s rolling over in its dirt crib. His Keystone Kops — Fatty Arbuckle and all — couldn’t hold a taper to the laugh riot induced by reading the nearly 200-page MCSO…
MAIA’s Michelle Dallacroce, the closest thing the nativists have to Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich. Being that I’m both pro-inebriation and what the anti-illegals crowd likes to call a champion of “open borders,” I normally might feel conflicted over a catfight between MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) and MAIA (Mothers…
