An employee at the McClintock High School bookstore embezzled about $192,000 from the store in a two-year period, Tempe police say. Rebecca Sue Soto, 49, [above], was arrested this morning at her Tempe home following a lengthy investigation by police. According to cops, someone saw Soto leave the school…
A Phoenix woman who coached boys — including her teenaged sons — on the fine art of armed robbery wasn’t quite as bad as the real Ma Barker, says a weekend story by the Associated Press. We covered the case for you last month after police announced the arrests…
Police made two more arrests last night in the case of a fatal arson fire last month at a Phoenix business, Young Champions of America. Josh Robinson, 28, a karate instructor at the company, was killed in the blaze that he helped start, police say. Jeffrey Otto, 19, and Moniza Murillo,…
Phoenix resident Antwone Coleman, 28, was booked into jail this week on grand jury charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault, though we’re still trying to find out details of his alleged crime. The Maricopa Superior Court and County Attorney’s Office had no details for us yet, but a bit of Googling came up…
Police have arrested 19-year-old Antonio Loren Reid on suspicion of shooting another man to death in the street just outside of a house party. Valley Fever featured Reid and his alleged getaway car driver, Brittany Lemons, in a post earlier this month after police put out a bulletin. Today, we…
A 42-year-old Peoria police officer with two years on the job shot at a berserk man who pointed a rifle at him last night, cops say. All police will say about the suspect so far is that he’s a 23-year-old Peoria resident. Calls began coming in about him at about 11:45…
What a scammer! Timothy Keay Isaac, 47, pleaded guilty today in federal court to a slew of charges related to his illicit company, which brought into the country a Chinese Viagra-like drug without prescriptions. But this is the part that bugs us: In 2006, Isaac applied for disability benefits from…
A lost flash drive full of kiddie porn led to the arrest of a 63-year-old man for suspected exploitation of a minor.The Tempe police case began when an employee at Tempe Marketplace picked up the flash drive on May 28 in the parking lot behind Harkins Theatres. He brought it…
Three Subway restaurant employees thwarted a robbery yesterday by simply walking away from the wanna-be gangsta trying to hold them up. The unusual incident began just before 11 p.m. last night at the eatery, 450 S. Sossaman, when a dude with black tape on his face piercing came in and…
Benny Peralta’s a caring guy who helps the elderly. Until they piss him off. The 46-year-old became enraged while getting fired yesterday by his employer, a woman who had hired him to assist with her disabled, 62-year-old husband, Phoenix police say. As the husband sat in his wheelchair, Peralta snatched the family…
It’s been a particularly bloody few days for Valley children. Loggan Lampert, 14, is bludgeoned to death by his uncle. A 2-year-old beaten with a belt buckle, allegedly by her mom’s boyfriend, dies. Another 2-year-old dies after being hit by a car in his trailer park. And now this: A…
Image: Tempe police Police captured a mentally ill man this morning in Tempe who stands accused of bludgeoning to death his mother and 14-year-old nephew. Phoenix police report this afternoon that Erick Lampert, 35, was caught in near 8600 South River in Tempe it was reported that someone suspicious was…
Two women who work in a Valley Wells Fargo bank claim their manager instructed them to stop speaking Spanish to Spanish-speaking employees, says a civil rights lawsuit filed in Superior Court. The white manager “didn’t like” when they spoke Spanish and told them to speak English, even when trying to…
Where is 24-year-old Ivan Ibarra Garcia? The local car dealer was kidnapped at gunpoint yesterday near Van Buren and 27th Avenue and spirited away to an unknown location. His relatives received ransom-demand calls throughout the night, police say, but he’s still in the custody of thugs…
Phoenix stripper Samantha Abernathy (pictured) was arrested yesterday after cops discovered she’d left her two little kids, 1 and 3 years old, alone in the house for hours. Neighbors called the cops at about 7:30 a.m. because the kids were running around loose in the apartment complex. Abernathy had left…
A Queen Creek mom is under investigation over the possibility that she failed to report her 14-year-old daughter’s sexual tryst with a young transient she’d invited to live in her home. Angel Green, (a.ka. Daniel Green — pictured above), was 18 when the mom-of-the-year candidate invited him to move in…
Semper fake! A Scottsdale man is in big trouble for playing dress-up. Authorities say John William Rodriquez, 31, (pictured) presented himself at several local functions as a highly decorated U.S. Marine. A list of possible charges (see below) indicates Rodriquez may have been trying to earn money with the ruse,…
Antonio Reid Cops want the public’s help to find two people suspected of involvement in a March murder. About 4 a.m. on March 14, Christopher Smith, 20, had been hanging with other partiers in front of a house near Indian School Road and 7th Avenue…
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas just announced grand jury indictments against Johnathan Hock, a Phoenix man accused of raping a woman live on the Internet. Hock, 20, has been indicted on two counts of sexual assault and one count of voyeurism. Police believe he raped the unconscious woman on February 26…
Mesa cardiologist Richard Lewis was booked into jail recently on suspicion of fondling the breasts of two female patients. Lewis, 53, is alleged to have fondled one woman in late 2008 during a pre-surgery exam. Cops say last Thursday he fondled a woman’s breasts who was just waking up from a surgery he had…
A former National Park Services employee has been charged by the federal government with leaving a fire unattended that grew out of control and spurred the evacuation of Crown King, a small, mountain town northwest of Phoenix. The “Lane 2” fire burned nearly 10,000 acres before it was brought under…
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has charged a Glendale man who stabbed his family members with two counts of first-degree murder.
