The governor turned to his family, and his wife and two eldest sons came close. The four stood in a tight circle behind the table where the governor sat as a defendant throughout a historic and an epic criminal trial. His wife, Ann, who throughout the trial had remained composed,…
And Justice for Fife New Times’ online publication, phoenixnewtimes.com, is conducting a survey of views on Governor J. Fife Symington III’s guilt or innocence. If the jury currently deliberating sees it anything like our Web-heads, the Fifester is a quiverin’ bunny in a kennel of Rottweilers. (Note: The poll is…
Graham Allusion Is Barry Graham (“Les Go, Mercury,” July 31) threatened by the physical ability of women on the basketball court? Would he write a similar column about a gay football player? I go for the sport because of good players playing a good sport, doing a great job. I…
Bow-wow-wow, yipee-o, yipee-ay, Doggy Dogg’s in the motherfuckin’ house. –Dr. Dre, The Chronic The problem with Desert Sky Pavilion is that it’s not close to anywhere. In particular, it’s a long way from Long Beach. And, at least for today, so is Snoop Doggy Dogg. This is Lollapalooza, the traveling…
Last Friday afternoon, as the criminal trial of Governor J. Fife Symington III drew to a close, prosecutor David Schindler got one last chance to persuade the jury to find the governor guilty of 19 counts of bank fraud, one count of perjury and one count of attempted extortion. Schindler…
On July 18, Donald Johanson moved his Institute of Human Origins from Berkeley, California, to the Social Sciences building at Arizona State University. Johanson, 54, and two of his colleagues at the anthropological research institute will join the university as faculty. Johanson is a paleoanthropologist, an expert on prehistoric man,…
The journalism curriculum at Tolleson Union High School includes a text titled Press Time that extols students’ First Amendment rights, declaring, “This famous amendment reads in part, ‘Congress shall make no law . . . abridging freedom of speech, or of the press . . . ‘” But when student…
This spring, a 10,000-gallon spill of wastewater and other mishaps at the Sumitomo Sitix silicon-wafer plant in northeast Phoenix worried local residents, many of whom had opposed construction of the plant so close to homes in the first place. Sitix of Phoenix president Robert Gill tried to calm those fears,…
On July 21, Phoenix defense attorney David Erlichman stood before Superior Court Judge Michael Yarnell and said this: “I consider myself the last of the line here, Your Honor, defending the very true freedoms of America because I’m from Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and that is what it is all about,…
Anchor Steamy Although Jineane Ford’s days as a svelte beauty queen are far, far behind her, the KPNX-TV Channel 12 anchor’s forgotten legacy as a B-movie starlet lives on via home video. Or so The Flash recently discovered, when a tipster noted the jiggly journalist’s role as an airheaded bimbo…
During the 13 weeks he’s presided over Governor J. Fife Symington III’s criminal trial, U.S. District Court Judge Roger B. Strand often has delayed making even routine decisions. His indecisiveness continued Tuesday, August 5, when Strand declined to release final jury instructions to the prosecution and defense lawyers on the…
When you talk about Phoenix to people from other states, they mention the heat, the mistreatment of prisoners in Joe Arpaio’s gulag, and, maybe, the Suns. But it’s rare to hear anyone mention that Phoenix has produced one of the greatest fighters in the history of boxing. Michael Carbajal’s impact…
In late July, Mesa city councilmember Jim Stapley sued fellow councilmember Joan Payne. Stapley claimed that Payne had slandered him by calling him a “pervert in polyester” on a local radio talk show. Stapley also sought an injunction in Maricopa County Superior Court preventing Payne from talking about him over…
Temp Tantrum This concerns the column written by Michael Lacey (“Typo Negative,” June 5) about the testimony of J. Fife Symington III’s former secretary, Joyce Riebel, relating the governor’s alleged banking corruption. In discussing Riebel’s experience and her previous connections with powerful and influential men, Lacey stated that she is…
At first, the beat-to-hell Tempe tract home doesn’t look like the epicenter of anything. Except, maybe, the white-trash universe. The neglected desert landscaping has long since returned to the Earth, leaving behind an unsightly collage of gravel, dirt and tar-paper shards. In the center of the lawn stands a greasy…
Here’s a vision of hell, as drawn by Todd McFarlane in the 10th issue of Spawn, the best-selling comic book in the country: A row of black-hooded men, hands lashed behind them, stands trembling with fear. Flames curl around their feet. Beneath their hoods, the men are weeping. Before them…
Wayne Legg handed his wallet, watch and keys to a friend a few minutes before the jury delivered its verdict on Tuesday afternoon. He must have had a premonition. The panel convicted the once-powerful Mesa attorney on 13 counts of felony theft and fraud after a monthlong trial. Moments after…
Why Fife’s Defendantsy If the conviction bug bites Governor J. Fife Symington III, deliberations over his sentence should take the following statements into consideration. The Fifester included them in a letter he issued on July 10, 1992, in conjunction with his veto of Senate Bill 1490, legislation that would have…
Inexorably, federal prosecutor David Schindler is dragging Governor J. Fife Symington III through a time Symington would rather forget. Schindler is taking Symington back 12 years, to the fall of 1985, when the first major cracks in Symington’s development company began to appear. Back to the days when Symington was…
It’s not hard to see why basketball has caught on the way it has. Unlike baseball, it’s fast-paced and easy to follow, even if you don’t understand all the rules. Unlike football, it’s as much about personal charisma as athletic prowess–the personalities of Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman are allowed…
Road Work Ahead I used to think 1989’s ValTrans was a bad idea, but Proposition 1 is looking worse (“Trainplotting,” Howard Stansfield, July 3). ValTrans actually had a plan. There was a 30-page report laying out how the taxpayers’ money would be spent. We knew where the routes would be…
The woman, we’ll call her Anna, recently left the medical staff at one of the county’s jails, and what she saw there shocked her. Anna makes it clear that administering to inmates is difficult work. Many of the inmates are malingerers who can make life hell for the people who…
