IN PARADISE VALLEY, COTTON IS KING

NFL LINEBACKER MARCUS COTTON MAY HAVE RAPED AN ASU CO-ED. TOO BAD THE COPS We’re in a unique county in Ohio,” says Detective Franz. Anywhere else in the state, Mr. Cotton probably would have had to plead to a felony. It was a date rape, but the victim was credible…

A BUNCH OF NAME-DROPPERS

Over a period of time, I have become more than just skeptical of County Attorney Richard Romley and his partner in the AzScam sting, then-Police Chief Ruben Ortega. Nothing personal. It’s just that after years of covering these two, it is my opinion that both Romley and Ortega are more…

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

A RIBBON through bleakness, the latest installment of the Hohokam Expressway snakes up from the south, fording the Salt River. It gathers momentum, sending exit ramps diving for Sky Harbor International Airport and Washington Street, and seems to promise a shot at Camelback Mountain before merging into McDowell Road. Like…

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

But the condemnation process does not require the state to pay a landowner for a property’s potential or the dreams of grandeur harbored by a developer. Just compensation is considered the value of the property at the moment it is appraised. The state’s appraisers came onto Gabrielli’s land and saw…

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

He says he believes ADOT knew about the pesticides in the concrete sump and refused to settle his case in order to hold him responsible for the cleanup. He suggests that the state didn’t order the Phase II audit because it knew the study would discover problems, and that the…

THE WIRE IS CUT

The message on my telephone recorder was from Wally Pritchard. This is your old pal, Wally,” the voice said. I’m back on the street again. But things aren’t going too good for me here in Chicago. I’m thinking about coming out to Phoenix to settle down. Give me a call.”…

DRESSED TO KILL

You are now free to discuss your observations,” Mike Arra said. Arra is the prison official supervising the media members who witnessed the killing. Arra is a onetime television personality turned prison public relations man. He once worked for Channel 10 but went into prison work when it became obvious…

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

So the state started freeway construction in the middle of a former chemical plant without first checking to see what might lie beneath the surface of the ground. This is a remarkable oversight given the state’s own records which documented the 22-year presence of Olin Mathieson on the site. This…

THE WINDMILLS OF JACK LEVINE, PART 2

In order to adequately protect the security of this country, it is requested that authority be granted to place a technical surveillance at his current residence and at any future address to which he may move.” Levine was not interested in talking with Soviet agents. He was trying to find…

THE WINDMILLS OF JACK LEVINE, PART 4

For bar leaders, normally tightlipped about everything, to encourage the Republic to review his case file was an outrage of the highest order, Levine says. In this instance, the bar chose to fight Levine’s argument against merit selection by attacking his credibility. Turney, who was not at the meeting but…

THE WINDMILLS OF JACK LEVINE, PART 1

WALKING OUT of Maricopa County Superior Court in late 1984, Anthony Abril Jr. should have been a happy man. A jury had just awarded the 32-year-old hairdresser $1.3 million in damages from his insurance company, a remarkable verdict considering that Abril had sued over the distress he suffered after running…

THE WINDMILLS OF JACK LEVINE, PART 3

I would not enter into that agreement as a lawyer in a thousand years, period,” attorney David Gage, a seasoned member of the state’s personal-injury bar, would later testify. Mr. Harris has a clear conflict of interest under this agreement, and it is an intolerable conflict of interest, in my…

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Kevin Johnson-we know it was him, his license plates said Hope 7″- entered the Fish Market for dinner with a date on Tuesday night. But he left his parking lights on. Informed that the battery inside his black Porsche was dying, Johnson, already seated at a table, shrugged. A few…

WHY FIFE’S HISTORY

SYMINGTON This is not a love story. Nor is this about the lives of private persons. In fact, the story of Annette Alvarez and Fife Symington is a public disgrace. It’s an old tale about the bigness of little things, of petty crimes that become a person’s undoing. If the…

TOUGH TIMES FOR THE QUEEN

I get out of the car. I want a better look. High above stands Leona Helmsley’s $10 million house. It shimmers in the bright afternoon sun, seemingly clinging to the top of Mummy Mountain in Paradise Valley. A large American flag flaps in the breeze from a very tall flagpole…

A WORD TO THE WISE: DON’T GET SICK

On April 15, Leona Helmsley will report to prison. One of those desperate dowagers who wipes on the cosmetics with a catcher’s mitt, the hotel hostess was convicted of being a tax weasel. On the very same day that Helmsley begins serving her sentence, the rest of us will have…