Brian Bizzell is a band teacher with the Buckeye Unified School District — which is unfortunate considering he’s also an alleged pederast.Bizzell, who teaches at Estrella Foothills High School, was arrested early yesterday morning after police found evidence on one of his student’s cell phones that he and the underage…
A Phoenix man who pleaded guilty to charges that he locked his 14-year-old daughter in a bathroom for months, barely fed her, and forced her to exercise until exhaustion, was sentenced to 15 years in prison this morning.Additionally, Scott Bass, 31, was sentenced to lifetime probation by Maricopa County Superior…
“She is definitely dead — I put two to the chest and one to the head.”That’s what Anthony Rinaldi — now a former Department of Corrections officer — told a Department of Public Safety officer last night, less than 30 minutes after fatally shooting his wife, 28-year-old Amanda Rinaldi, at…
A federal grand jury returned an indictment this morning alleging that a Queen Creek pain management doctor billed the state health care program for patients he never actually saw. The scammed money, the feds say, was used to buy several pricey items, including an Arabian horse. The indictment also alleges…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his top supervisors declared last week that agency’s failure to properly investigate hundreds of sex-crime cases didn’t jeopardize public safety.The father of one teenage girl in El Mirage says that’s a bunch of crap.In 2008, the girl was just 14 when she had sex…
An officer with the Arizona Department of Corrections turned himself into authorities last night and confessed to murdering his wife at the Phoenix home the couple shared.The officer’s two young children were in the home at the time of the shooting.Phoenix police say about 6:20 p.m. yesterday, Anthony Rinaldi, 26,…
The Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” comes to mind…Intriguing video by activist/videographer Dennis Gilman of the fray at the ALEC conference between demonstrators and Phoenix police. While it’s hardly the siege of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, some of the tactics of the police are certainly questionable.The scene where the…
What kind of heartless soul would hassle a 79-year-old man holding a puppy about botched sex-crime investigations? No-nonsense 12News reporter Brahm Resnik, that’s who.Resnik tracked down Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio at the Christmas party for the MCSO’s MASH Unit to ask him how more than 400 sex-crime investigations were…
Basketball superstar Scottie Pippen wants $1 million each from the ASU Foundation and various media outlets around the country for calling him broke.Sounds like a great way to raise money — if his legal moves can equal his performance for the Chicago Bulls.In a federal complaint filed yesterday in the…
The National Transportation Safety Board announced yesterday that it’s now urging all states to impose total bans on people using cell phones while driving.The board determined texting, sexting, emailing, chatting — whatever — is too dangerous to do while driving a vehicle.The recommendation includes exceptions for emergencies and devices that…
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday will take its second look at New Times’ lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio for the 2007 arrests of the newspaper’s two top executives..The Ninth’s 11-member en banc panel will hear the appeal this time, rather than the three-member panel that ruled on the…
Phoenix police confirmed this afternoon that one of its own is facing felony domestic violence charges stemming from an incident at his Casa Grande home over the weekend.In addition to being a Phoenix police officer, Armando Ramirez is a reserve in the United States Marine Corps. who just returned from…
Arizona Congressman Ben Quayle today officially joined several other GOP members of Congress in calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to step down over “Fast and Furious,” the Justice Department’s botched gun-running sting.Previously, Quayle politely asked Holder if he had any intentions of stepping down.Quayle, however, remains mum on the…
Sorry, gentlemen, according to her Facebook page, Brandi Farnberg, 23, is in a relationship. According to police, she’s also an alleged car thief with aliases like “Sabrina Angelo,” “Brandy Torres,” and “Kacey Whitmore.”Farnberg was arrested early yesterday morning after she was stopped by police while driving a stolen car. Additionally,…
Taylor Jose Basilio told police earlier this week that he’s done some “stupid things” lately. Specifically, he beat his 7-week-old son so violently that the baby’s skull was fractured in two places.Basilio and his wife, Candace Basilio, each of Phoenix, brought the baby to a pediatrician last week to get…
Joel Fox Joel Fox finally has achieved the equivalent of a base hit in a court case. A federal judge ruled recently that a lawsuit against Cox Communications by the disgraced former captain fired by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio can proceed, for now. At the heart of the lawsuit, so to…
Congratulations to the New Times reader who goes by the handle Joe Mamma, you are the proud winner of this week’s New Times You Write the Caption contest.On Friday, we asked readers to provide what they think would be an appropriate caption for the above cover of Globe, and Maricopa…
The Chandler Unified School District decided yesterday to uphold a semester-long suspension for five eighth grade students who threatened to kill their teacher by — among other methods — setting her on fire, cutting out her tongue, drowning her, or running her over with a truck.See our post on the…
Call it the revenge of Randy Parraz. The man who organized the end of former state Senate President Russell Pearce’s Career is returning — MacArthur-like — to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors’ auditorium, the place where he was falsely arrested in 2008 by Joe’s boys in beige while seeking…
If 20-year-old William Lowe’s aspiring to become a ruthless serial killer, he may be on the right track. Like Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, and David Berkowitz before they were cold-blooded killers, Lowe apparently gets his kicks by hurting defenseless animals.According to police, Lowe shot a puppy with a high-powered pellet…
Since the old, 2009 Pulitzer Prize-worthy tale of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s 432 botched sex-crime investigations was thrust into the national spotlight thanks to an oddly timed Associated Press article last week, two of Arizona’s three Democratic members of Congress have called for his resignation (Gabrielle Giffords hasn’t commented…
Governor Jan Brewer’s lawsuit against Arizona’s medical marijuana law took a beating today in federal court, where a judge told the state’s lawyers to pick a side on the issue.Brewer and her legal enforcer in the case, state Attorney General Tom Horne, campaigned against Prop 203 before voters passed it…
