An investigation should be launched against four retired and current Maricopa Superior Court judges who committed ethical breaches, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s chief deputy demands in letters to the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct. The complaint letters by Dave Hendershott (left in festive shirt while in Houduras on alleged MCSO business), dated…
Maricopa County detention officers plan to hold candlight vigils starting this evening to protest the jailing of a fellow officer who swiped papers from a defense attorney’s file. The Web site for the Maricopa County Association of Detention Officers says the vigil will run “nightly” from 6 p.m. to 8…
Arizona’s lackluster Legislature is looking to call its next special session the week of December 14 to discuss ways to bridge the state’s $1.6 billion budget gap. Despite having no plan other than Governor Brewer’s one-cent sales-tax increase that has failed time and time again in the Republican-led Senate — and…
Chandler police have arrested a man they believe is involved in a three-year-old murder case. Police arrested 22-year-old Rodrigo Romero yesterday for possible involvement in the 2006 murder of Lindsey Key. Key was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting near Arizona Avenue and Erie Street in Chandler on December…
It may have been an exercise in futility for his many victims, but disbarred attorney, scamming divorce “mediator,” and current state prison inmate Gary Karpin appeared in court the other day at a so-called restitution hearing. Readers of New Times may remember Karpin, seen in his skanky 2006 booking photo to the left. Here’s a…
Are the Suns who we thought they were before the season got going? Certainly hope not, but after two blowout losses in as many nights, we’re beginning to wonder. Sure, the 107-90 road loss last night to one of the top teams in the NBA, the Cleveland Cavaliers, wasn’t as embarrassing as…
The Arizona Supreme Court decided late Wednesday not to block enactment of a new state law that would require public employees to report illegal immigrants. The justices didn’t discuss the merits of the law, but said that the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, which had asked that the law…
I used to frequent a cantina in Chicago where half of the bar was Polack, the other half beaner. The Polacks would speak in their native tongue and either start or finish all of their sentences with the word kurwa. I understand this to mean “whore” in their language. On…
CORRECTIONS • Last week’s cover story should’ve said that the case against Sandra Dowling began before the formation of the Maricopa Anti-Corruption Effort. • Also, Don Stapley hired both Paul Charlton and Tom Henze as his criminal defense lawyers. BIG BALLER Mike Nixon’s story is movie-ready: Who’s got the film…
Four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars ago, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas filed suit to stop the county’s Spanish-language program for DUI offenders. You’ve probably heard little, if anything, about the case since Thomas’ initial media blitz, when he argued that providing probation services in Spanish somehow violated…
New Times columnist Sarah Fenske and our design team topped the list of winners in some recent national contests. Fenske was honored with a Clarion Award from the Association of Women in Communications for column writing, including her stories about Bryant Wilkerson, a black man who faced jail time for…
Editor’s note: This is one of a group of individual accounts of racial profiling by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s forces. The next personal story will appear on our Web site Wednesday night, December 9. Just about everyone in Julio Mora’s family plays baseball, including his three older brothers and his dad,…
QUEEN FOR A DAY The ironically dubbed “First Amendment Forum” at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism concluded as if it were something out of a surrealist film, with Joe Arpaio donning a furry UofA Wilbur the Wildcat hat while being serenaded by a cadre of pro-immigrant rights activists. The…
There’s a big plaster duck in the driveway of Rick Orr’s mobile home. If you know Rick Orr, you know this can’t possibly be just any plaster duck; it’s almost certainly one of the world’s rarest plaster ducks, probably worth tens of thousands of dollars and crafted by some dead…
In the 24-hour news cycle it can be difficult to keep up. We have the solution. Check back on Valley Fever every evening for highlights from each of New Times’ blogs. Today’s entries: Feathered Bastard:Sheriff Joe’s Bigoted Deputies Harass an Activist in Video from September Sweep Up on the Sun:…
A drug-addled transient who shot and killed two former buddies in their office back in 2004 will serve the rest of his life in prison. Howard Colin Fisk, 38, received two sentences of life in prison today, court officials said. The former Scottsdale resident pleaded guilty to the double murder last…
A Metro light-rail train crashed into a passenger van earlier this afternoon in Central Phoenix, resulting in a spectacular wreck but just a few minor injuries. The collision occurred just after 4 p.m. near Washington and 19th streets, when a westbound train and a late-model white Chevrolet Express came together, causing the vehicle…
Patrick Chorpenning, the former director of the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services, pleaded not guilty today to charges of fraud and misuse of public funds. The state Attorney General’s office is prosecuting Chorpenning after a two-year investigation turned up a mountain of evidence that he had abused his position. An…
wwwuthpastor.com Google has made it possible for the average person to see their house from space, get a 360-degree view of almost any street in the country, and now the company is taking on swine-flu. The Arizona Department of Health Services announced today that it is partnering with Google…
It was mass confusion at the Maricopa County Courthouse today. About 20 county Sheriff’s Office deputies and detention officers called in sick, a possibly orchestrated “action” that wreaked havoc with courtroom schedules and the transportation of inmates from the county jail for hearings and other matters. The sick-out, if that’s truly…
Back in September, shortly after MCSO’s South Phoenix anti-immigrant sweep, I blogged about a 2006 letter signed by Sheriff Joe to the head of Phoenix Copwatch acknowledging the constitutional right of citizens to videotape his deputies in public.Galindo’s first video of his run in with the MCSO at Gran MercadoDespite…
Department of Public Safety officers, in collaboration with several other law enforcement agencies, carried out one of the final stages of “Operation Quiet Riot” last night, arresting seven members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club for a series of violent assaults in Northern Arizona bars. “Quiet Riot” was a six-month investigation…
