By the time you read this Wednesday morning, Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Ducey will be Arizona's governor-elect.
In October, The Center for Investigative Reporting and Phoenix New Times collaborated on an article revealing Ducey to be the scion of an infamous Ohio organized-crime family named Scott, whose illegal deeds have involved operating after-hours gambling clubs, bookmaking, numbers-running, extortion, loan-sharking, and other lucrative illicit activities.
Though the Ducey campaign has stonewalled New Times on all requests for comment, it has begrudgingly acknowledged to another news outlet the accuracy of the initial report.
This, while adhering to the candidate's prepackaged biography, depicting Ducey as, in the words of his stump speech "the son of a cop," raised in Toledo, Ohio with all-American "Midwestern values."
See also: -Special Report: Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate Doug Ducey Hails From an Infamous Ohio Organized-Crime Family -Doug Ducey's Flack Confirms Organized Crime Story -Doug Ducey's Shady Salesmanship of Himself and the GOP Brand Signals Doom for Arizona
The truth is far more complex.
Indeed, since the October report, CIR and New Times have uncovered additional information that further undermines Ducey's glowing, Norman Rockwell-like self-portrait.
This new information involves both Ducey's "cop" father and Ducey's maternal uncle, William P. "Billy" Scott, a convicted bookie and cocaine user, who pleaded guilty in 2012 to international money laundering, in relation to an off-shore, online gambling empire he established in the 1990s on the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda.
Ducey's biological father, Doug Roscoe, was in business with the Scott family, after marrying Ducey's mother Madeline Scott in 1963, but before he joined the Toledo Police Department in 1965.
Toledo's 1964 City Directory lists Roscoe as the proprietor of a restaurant, the Original Hot Dog on Dorr Street. Ducey's mom was the business' "secretary," according to the directory.
The directory lists Ducey's maternal grandmother, also named Madeline - who was investigated along with her husband William Scott and her son Billy Scott for illegal gambling - as president of the restaurant.
A William Scott is listed as both vice president and treasurer.
So before Roscoe applied to be a police officer with the Toledo Police Department, he and his wife were in business with his in-laws, the Scotts, who were involved in organized crime.
When Roscoe applied to be a TPD police officer in August 1965, his personnel file, obtained by New Times for this story, mentions that he had been the operator of Original Hot Dog on Dorr Street.
The file, partially redacted, notes the involvement of Roscoe's in-laws in the venture.
Roscoe was hired by the TPD in 1965 and served for 12 years, resigning from the force April 1977, without offering a reason why.
Two months before Roscoe left, he had been informed by a superior that according to police union rules, he could not work while on a leave of absence.
To what degree this information influenced his decision to leave the TPD is unknown.
During the time Roscoe was a cop, his in-laws the Scotts were getting raided, arrested, and investigated by federal, state, and local authorities on illegal gambling schemes.
Much of this was reported in Ducey's hometown daily newspaper, the Toledo Blade.
In our original article, CIR and New Times quoted several Blade pieces that recounted the Scott's exploits during the time Roscoe was a Toledo police officer.
Additionally, Ducey's great-uncle, Tony Paul Scott (alias Neufio Scott) was a major Toledo hoodlum, well known to members of Toledo's law enforcement community.
By the time of his death in 1993, Tony Paul had been stripped of his naturalized citizenship by the feds, his illegal fortune invested in property in his wife's name.
Needless to say, it's unlikely that Patrolman Roscoe would have been unaware of the Scott family's less-than-sterling reputation in Toledo.
Similarly, the criminal career of Ducey's maternal uncle, Billy Scott, made the Blade's front page more than once.
Ironically, both Billy Scott and Doug Roscoe now live in Broward County, Florida, according to real estate records, residing about 35 minutes from each other.
Though Roscoe gives Toledo, Ohio, as his city of residence on his Facebook page, records of campaign donations Roscoe made to Ducey offer Hollywood, Florida, as Roscoe's residence, giving his occupation as "principal" in the company R.E.P., Inc.
There is no description of what the business does in public records, though R.E.P. has been in existence since 1988.
Roscoe, like his eldest son, Doug, has not returned phone calls and online messages seeking answers to such questions.
Meanwhile, Uncle Billy is serving out the remainder of his probation in a house in Parkland, Florida, estimated by Zillow.com to be worth $1.2 million.
Currently, the Parkland address is in the name of Billy's wife, Susan A. Kolar Scott.
Billy Scott and Susan were wed in 1989, Court records in Franklin County, Ohio, show.
Interestingly, campaign-finance records for Ducey's successful 2010 bid for state treasurer show that a "Susan Scott" at an address in suburban Columbus donated a total of $840 to Ducey.
That was about five years after Susan Scott sold the residence to its current owner Leo Zupan, records show.
Zupan claims he never met Scott and had nothing to do with any donation in an Arizona political race.
Scott has had no connection to the address since she sold the house in 2005, Zupan explained.
He said he knew Ms. Scott had a husband, but at the time he bought the house, she was the sole owner of the property.
Additionally, he was aware from talking to neighbors that Susan's husband had had to flee the country because of legal problems.
Requests for clarification and comment made to Billy Scott, Billy Scott's lawyer, and the Ducey campaign remain unanswered.
Clerical error might explain why Susan Scott's address is listed incorrectly on Ducey's campaign-finance report.
Still, in 2010, when Susan donated, her husband, Billy Scott, still was a fugitive from U.S. justice.
Ducey's mother visited her on-the-lam brother in St. Maarten in September 2011, almost a year after Ducey's election as Arizona treasurer and one year before Billy returned to the United States to pay his debt to society, forfeiting $7 million in frozen assets as part of a deal with prosecutors, and receiving three years' probation.
Billy has endured worse. He spent 4 1/2 years in federal prison for racketeering and extortion, part of that time in an Arizona facility.
Following his release, Billy Scott fled to the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, where he founded the Internet gaming giant World Wide Tele-Sports, renounced his U.S. citizenship, and became a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda, where his Internet gambling enterprise was legal and located a stones throw from his residence on the island of St. Maarten.
In 1998, Scott was indicted in absentia in U.S. District Court on counts related to illegal Internet gambling and his ownership of the online betting behemoth World Wide Tele-Sports.
Scott is believed to have traveled quietly to the States during this time. But in 2012, he did so openly, to plead guilty to the charges mentioned above.
Earlier this year, his attorney, Juan Chardiet, petitioned the federal court to allow his client to return to his home in St. Maarten, citing Billy Scott's good behavior and ill health.
Federal Judge Richard J. Leon quickly denied Chardiet's motion.
Facebook posts from 2011 show Madeline on the beach in St. Maarten next to her brother, Billy, a glass of wine in her hand.
Doug Ducey remains on good terms with Doug Roscoe, who attended both his son's inauguration for treasurer and was onstage for Ducey's GOP primary night win in August.
On his Facebook page, Roscoe brags about his son's likelihood of becoming "the next AZ governor." He has posted photos of the two together, hanging out at a picnic, drinking beers with friends and family.
Doug Roscoe and Madeline Scott's marriage ended in divorce. Madeline remarried a couple of times afterward, first in1975 to Toledo resident Michael Ducey.
Michael adopted Doug, his younger brother Nick, and their younger sister, Kristi.
Michael and Madeline divorced in 1981, Ducey's junior year in high school.
While Ducey remained in Toledo for his senior year at St. John's Jesuit High School, his mother migrated west, eventually landing in Las Vegas, where she was briefly married to a croupier named Morris Gerges.
According to court records, Madeline and Morris married on Valentines Day, 1982, and divorced in June of that year.
Madeline later married California businessman Ken Burk, an early investor in Cold Stone Creamery, whose participation in the chain as a major investor and CEO preceded Doug Ducey's by a year.
Ducey, who traveled to Tempe in 1982 to study finance at ASU, kept the surname from his mom's second marriage, but he seems closer to his biological father and never mentions Michael Ducey publicly.
This has sometimes led to the mistaken assumption that his biological dad was named "Ducey" and therefore must be the cop in question.
Michael Ducey, who still lives in Toledo, did not respond to requests for an interview.
Court records show that following their divorce, there were disputes between Michael Ducey and Doug Ducey's mom, Madeline, over child support.
During a debate with his Democratic rival Fred DuVal, candidate Ducey inveighed against deadbeat dads, offering that if he is elected, he will make a point of using the power of his office "to garnish those paychecks and make sure those dollars get to those single mothers and there's some responsibility for those actions."
To some degree, biography is destiny.
Which is why the links binding Ducey to the rest of his family are important - whether those individuals are convicted criminals, a cop, or a stepfather whose surname endures.
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