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…
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…
What outlandish legal maneuver will the Wily Wilenchik pull next? The presiding judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court, Judge Barbara “Badass” Mundell has shot down an unprecedented bit of legal subterfuge by County Attorney Candy “Babyface” Thomas and his well-paid henchman, Demon Dog Dennis “the Menace” Wilenchik. Candy and…
Rick Romley, coolest effin’ Republican I know of… I called former MCAO Rick Romley yesterday to get a quote about his endorsement of Dan Saban for Sheriff in ’08 over Nickel Bag Joe, and ended up discussing loads of stuff: the recent Wilenchik-Ryan donnybrook; current MCAO Candy “Babyface” Thomas; and…
PHX radio station KTAR 92.3 FM’s a real conundrum. As far as reporting local, breaking news, they do a pretty good job sometimes. And they have an increasingly solid Web site, with interesting stories that they’ve either cribbed from other sources or have done original reporting on. This, despite the…
Just got this press release from the Saban camp announcing that former Republican County Attorney Rick Romley is endorsing now-Democrat Dan Saban for Sheriff in ’08 over Sheriff Joe Arpaio. I’m on deadline right now and don’t have time to follow-up, but I’ll call Romley in the A.M. to confirm…
Round one of the Wilenchik-Ryan donnybrook. (We’ve improved the video a bit on these. Don’t know why Round 2 is so choppy, but at least the sound is better.) For fans of scintillating courtroom drama, here finally are highlights from last Wednesday’s legal rumble between PHX pit bull attorney Dennis…
Doesn’t the MCSO have something better to do than play with DMX’s dead pit bulls? Apparently not. Friday, I picked up a copy of the necropsies (doggy autopsies) done on the three dead canines found at rapper DMX’s Cave Creek residence in August. Fresh off the MCSO’s photocopier, whaddya think…
Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill just got back to me on the existence of further video of Carol Anne Gotbaum’s arrest last Friday. Bottom line: There is some. This was Hill’s response to my question about info. from a source of mine, a former security person at Sky Harbor,…
Sgt. Andy Hill of the PHX PD just released the following statement regarding the transcripts of phone calls made by Noah Gotbaum concerning his spouse Carol Anne Gotbaum. This was a mass e-mail sent out by Hill. I’m guessing the article on the front page of the Arizona Republic, which…
Carol Gotbaum with her three children Ella, Nathaniel and Tobias. Carol with husband Noah and their kids. Here’s the update on the police report I promised, along with some new photos released by the Gotbaum family. They show Noah and Carol Gotbaum with their kids: Ella, 8; Nathaniel, 6; and…
I made the PHX PD press conference today where Sgt. Andy Hill showed surveillance footage of Carol Anne Gotbaum’s arrest and gave details of the events leading up to her death. Above is a clip from the recordings the cops released. PHX PD also issued a full police report containing…
Pugnacious PHX barrister Dennis Wilenchik… Someone slipped me the video of the courtroom donnybrook that broke out yesterday between Superior Court Judge Timothy Ryan and demon law dawg Dennis Wilenchik, who came off looking like he eats bowls of rusty railroad nails for breakfast. I’m working on getting some clips…
For anyone who didn’t see Anderson Cooper 360 last night, Cooper interviewed two witnesses of Carol Anne Gotbaum’s Friday arrest at Sky Harbor Airport, and their accounts were, to say the least, highly disturbing. According to Cooper, Mel Pittel and Paige Harmon called CNN from Hawaii to explain what they…
Pathologist Cyril Wecht, who performed a “backup autopsy” on Carol Gotbaum’s corpse late today. Spoke with Gotbaum family attorney Mike Manning earlier this evening, around 6 p.m. He informed me that noted forensic pathologist Cyril H. Wecht had been flown in from Pittsburgh to do a “backup autopsy” of Carol…
Former Congressman Gary Condit loses again in court to the Sonoran News . Here’s an update to my July post “What a Condumbass! Linda Bentley, Gary Condit and the Sonoran News,” wherein I documented the gooberish legal maneuverings of former Congressman Gary Condit, who now lives in the Valley, like…
Not in the travel brochure: Come to lovely AZ and get chained and choked in the freakin’ airport. The autopsy of Carol Anne Gotbaum, the New York mother of three who died in Phoenix police custody Friday at Sky Harbor Airport, was ruled inconclusive this afternoon by county pathologist Dr…
Can we really buy this story that Carol Anne Gotbaum choked herself to death with her own handcuffs? The autopsy of the 45-year-old New York mother of three who died in PHX police custody Friday at Sky Harbor is under way at the moment, according to David Boyer, Director of…
