From the beginning of his public career, Fife Symington has managed to survive amid a morass of white-collar-fraud allegations. Though they tarnished him, all of the scandals came with bravura denials from Symington that inspired the faithful. There was always an excuse and, in the case of Richard Romley’s investigation…
Deborah Vasquez recently gave a television reporter the transcripts of a tape recording made during an undercover investigation by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. Vasquez had quit her position as secretary to first assistant attorney general Rob Carey in a hotly contested dispute last May. Since then, she has been…
The intersection of Seventh Street and Southern Avenue in South Phoenix is busy at dusk. Drivers race to get home to dinner and leave the problems of the workday behind. This particular Wednesday in February is no different, except for the cars filling the lot at the headquarters of the…
Marsell Ector just wanted to buy a pair of Timberland boots at Dillard’s in Mesa. But according to Ector and several witnesses, a security guard at Dillard’s Fiesta Mall location gave him a boot of a different kind–right out of the store. Ector, 24, says he was hounded, harassed and…
Tolleson Justice of the Peace Joe Guzman says Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox personally delivered a message to his office last November 20. It concerned her brother-in-law Danny Wilcox, an elected constable assigned to Guzman’s court. Guzman says the message was direct: “Mrs. Wilcox informed my assistant that Constable…
Tensions ran high March 1 during the normally placid monthly meeting of the Arizona Solar Energy Advisory Council. Instead of discussing new ways to promote the use of solar energy, the council unexpectedly found itself fighting for survival. Days earlier, the Arizona Senate had voted to eliminate the council after…
Big Flack Attack The following exchange occurred March 4 between a New Times reporter and Don “Don” Harris, former Arizona Republic reporter turned state Department of Commerce public information minister and obstructionist. Harris projects information like Bob Dole projects warmth. We join the conversation in progress, with New Times asking…
Here are some of the stories and characters that appeared on page B3 of the Arizona Republic on February 27: a gnomish man with a bulbous nose reading a sign. A smarmy, overweight woman with a Seventies hairdo and a heart on the front of her shirt who is mystified…
Now I thought we could discuss one of my favorite musicians, favorite humans, and for no other reason than let’s just go ahead and do it. And this person is Louis Armstrong. Satchmo. Pops. Everybody knows the names. Everybody knows the list of achievements–jazz visionary, cultural icon, goodwill ambassador to…
Anna Ott was a youngster whose troubles nestled into the souls of friends and strangers alike. At the age of 2, her arms and legs were amputated that she might survive a rare and pernicious disease. In this precarious state, 5-year-old Anna did not even have the comfort of her…
Even before she became very ill, Esther Perla was taking una de gato twice a day. Without it, she thinks, things would have gone downhill much faster. For this she thanks her mother, a part-time distributor and full-time believer in the curative powers of herbs and natural products like garlic…
Phoenix city leaders may face unforeseen obstacles completing a sweetheart development deal for Sumitomo–despite assertions to the public and the Japanese conglomerate that the company would be producing silicon wafers in northeast Phoenix within two years. Mayor Skip Rimsza and other bigwigs who crowed about the deal have been stymied…
Publish Interruptus Those progressive folks at Tribune Newspapers know what’s good for you, and what’s not. Sex is not. When the Mesa Community College newspaper, the Legend, produced a four-page special section titled Sex in the 90’s, honchos at the Tribune objected to its content and refused to insert it…
In the way the invention of the wheel set the world rolling, in the way penicillin healed the masses, in the way the Hues Corporation portended disco with “Rock the Boat,” comes now another in a series of historical events unimaginable until it came to be: At long last, someone…
Suspended Sentence I don’t think I have seen a sentence diagram fired in anger in 40 years (Flashes, February 15), but the diligent teachers at P.S. 69 did their work well because I was able to decipher the diagram, then quibble over it, in short order. The real defect in…
As the stylishly draped litigator who ran Attorney General Grant Woods’ staff of 301 lawyers, Rob Carey was the most powerful prosecutor in Arizona. Carey is cocky, urbane and intellectually intimidating, attributes that might have hung more gracefully from the frame of an older, less ambitious man; having taken over…
The headquarters of the international Space Access Society is a four-by-nine-inch bin at a Mailboxes & More in Ahwatukee. Henry Vanderbilt, the society’s executive director and lone employee, has good reason to keep his physical address a secret. Over the years, Vanderbilt’s been a magnet for every kook from here…
The homes were castles. The idea that they could be free from taxes was too much for the county assessor to believe. So Pete Corpstein started questioning the tax-exemptness of the nonprofit agencies that installed their clients in such homes–groups like Homeward Bound, which used homes in Scottsdale and Ahwatukee,…
The same day Richard Romley announced he would seek reelection as Maricopa County attorney, one of his subordinates was looking into a case that may prove to be an election-year headache. After New Times reported that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio had used public funds to hire outside counsel (“Joe…
The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System soap opera gets curiouser and curiouser. Federal investigations of AHCCCS continue to narrow their focus–and after a year of ignoring a scandal that could cost Arizona $200 million, the state’s largest daily newspaper may actually get around to mentioning it. Part one: the…
Just read the headlines. I know I do. It’s a jungle out there. No, it’s more than a jungle, and it’s not just out there. It’s in something hiding its bacterial calling card–courtesy of chemical preservatives–right there in the rear of the bottom shelf of your fridge. It’s in that…
Horror has an emotional shelf life. The remoteness of the Inquisition or the Diaspora makes these episodes of history less likely to stir up rage and sorrow in modern people than the Holocaust, many of whose victims are still among us. Ted Bundy and Charles Manson still make us shudder,…
