Pat Cantelme and Duane Pell, the firefighters whose friendship Bartlett claims has caused him to be persecuted, say that they know him only glancingly through Democratic functions, and that he was not involved as a private investigator at the time of Cantelme's indictment. (The charges against Cantelme were dropped.) There is no such thing as a close alliance" between Gary Bartlett and the firefighters union, they say. I have never had a beer with Gary Bartlett, socialized with him or employed him," says Cantelme.
To state fire marshal Pell, a former member of the Phoenix City Council who has officed near Bartlett and was thus introduced to Stedino during the early days of AzScam, Bartlett is a blowhard" who was always trying to introduce Pell to someone or other. He was always saying, `I've got somebody I want you to meet.' I was always unavailable." Pressured into service on the day he met Stedino, Pell paid so little attention to Bartlett and his friend from Reno" during their brief visit that he didn't recall having met Stedino until that fact was made public through police transcripts. Former governor Rose Mofford says she has known Bartlett in Democratic circles but has never worked in his campaigns or assisted" him with anything. Is he a close friend? He is an acquaintance. I don't have that many close friends," she says. Her knowledge of him is so vague that she isn't even sure whether he has ever been elected to public office. (He hasn't.)
It is such a surprising and uniform group of responses that Bartlett is asked to explain himself. He arrives for this next interview with the familiar air of a long-lost friend, as though he and the reporter whom he hardly knows have a history that extends back years. You look so beautiful in red," he tells her heartily.
He is told of his friends'" denials, and appears not so much defensive as earnest and confused. He doesn't back down a bit. Pat knows I investigated his cocaine case. He just forgot," he says. Alan Stephens not only was my campaign manager, but I have been to his home, they have been to mine. If I wanted to, I could probably dig up the records where he got paid."
As for Mofford, Bartlett suggests the reporter contact Karen Scates, Mofford's former aide, and ask her about the breakfasts he and Mofford and Scates have had together. (When contacted, Scates says no such breakfasts have occurred, and that she does not remember ever having had any other sort of conversation with Bartlett. She does not remember seeing Bartlett at the governor's office, either. In all the time that I have known Rose, Bartlett is not a person who was on her call list, which was a basketball-sized Rolodex," she says.)
All the deflections he has used are weak ones, and Bartlett doesn't do much else to defend himself. He says he can't provide any written corroboration of his claims, such as pay stubs for Stephens, because all his records are in storage." Asked to back up his reasons for filing his taxes late-the criminal charge on which he is awaiting sentencing-he cannot lead the reporter to the accountant who eventually filed the returns, who Bartlett says knows the real story. He says accountant Robert Stevenson has moved offices and he has lost track of him. (Stevenson is eventually located at the same address where he was subpoenaed last year in connection with Bartlett's trial, but says he is prohibited by law from commenting on circumstances surrounding his client's tax returns.) Most of all, Bartlett will not provide the names of additional business associates, close friends or family members who can vouch for him because he doesn't want them dragged into the spotlight, he says. He proclaims that nothing in the world is as dear to him as his children, in particular; he is very close to them. And he will never again speak to the reporter if she tries to involve them in this story because of the harm to them that could result.
As for his friends, he says, I didn't win the primary election for state treasurer in '78 because I didn't have any friends. I didn't get to be a judge because I was a bad guy. I didn't get where I am without friendship, and you are not going to get me to give it up.
I am not going to allow my friends or my family to be destroyed to satisfy you or the courts, because I truly fear that the county attorney would go after them."
He fears it, but the thought also makes him brighten suddenly, having realized why his political friends are being so vague about knowing him: They are protecting themselves. Tell them Gary Bartlett says, `Attaboy!' I believe that if you wrote a glowing article about me and you put Alan Stephens' name next to mine, he would not come off looking positive in the eyes of the county attorney," he says triumphantly.
In spite of Bartlett's dire warnings, the reporter telephones the attorney who handled the divorce of Bartlett's ex-wife, Susan, to find out more about Bartlett's family relationships, the ones he claims are so strong.
Bartlett's 1981 divorce was an exceptionally acrimonious one: Its records fill nine files at Maricopa County Superior Court and are sprinkled with references to Bartlett's alleged violence toward Susan. At some point early on in the proceedings, Bartlett even broke the nose of the first attorney who represented his wife. The assault charges against Bartlett that resulted were later dropped.
I perceived that his goal was to destroy his ex-wife, and that he felt immune from any type of action, in that he felt he could say whatever he wanted about anybody and not be held accountable," says Clay Plotkin, the lawyer who replaced the attorney with the broken nose. Yes, but divorces can be bitter that way. What about the children? Was he good to the three children, now 12, 16 and 20, whom he purports to love? Did he want to provide for them?
Susie Bartlett had been your typical Southern-belle homemaker, with limited, if any, marketable skills," says Plotkin. Every step of the way, for everything we ever got her, it was a battle. He made it a war because he didn't like to be told what to do. When she left the state, she had a 1978 diesel Mercedes, some furniture and three kids."
Despite Bartlett's version of the story that he told Stedino-he claimed that Susan had cleaned him out, that he was left post-divorce with only" $190,000 in cash and $2.3 million in savings and retirement funds-Plotkin estimates that Susan's total settlement from the marriage, a combination of home equity and a small amount from business interests, totaled far less than $40,000. This minor number was not a result of Susan's being chiseled, however; the Bartletts didn't have very much money to begin with. He claims financial ruination where there was very little to ruin," says Plotkin.
Although Bartlett was ordered by the courts to pay substantial child support, Plotkin says, He never, ever paid her a dime, in child support or otherwise." For years Plotkin tried to garnish Bartlett's wages but, except for the time when Bartlett was working as a Guadalupe town magistrate, Plotkin has never been able to locate records of any income. (Bartlett says that he hasn't had any income since 1981, the year the divorce went through, at first because he was disabled and then because he was incurring huge losses in his private investigation business. He is asked, Then how have you lived? I am not without assets," he says vaguely.)
Finally, Plotkin quit trying. Bartlett had reached a point where he was judgment-proof," he says.
Susan Bartlett and the children have long been living in Memphis, and they are finally tracked down there. Susan is asked: Is Gary close to his kids?
We haven't heard from him in four or five years," she says. He doesn't talk to them or see them. And the man has not paid me any child support; he owes thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. You are talking about ten years; I have raised these children alone. But I cannot find his funds. I just have given up.
If he doesn't go to jail for tax evasion, he should go to jail for not paying child support."
She tells a story that may have much to say about Bartlett's character, both as a father and because it illustrates the way the Judge" judges others.
She says that last summer Bartlett came to Memphis and twice contacted his children through emissaries to ask them to meet with him. The eldest daughter, Christi, didn't want to see her father at all, but Lee, the 16-year-old, and Casey, who is 12, told their mother they would go, although only if their father telephoned them himself. Bartlett didn't call, and the meeting never happened.
Afterward, Susan says, Lee received a blaming note from his father. The note said that Bartlett had planned to turn over to his son the keys to a Volvo if they had gotten together that day; since Lee hadn't shown up, he would never receive the car now.
Of course, Lee was just devastated. I can't afford to buy him a car," Susan says. (Gary Bartlett wouldn't respond to this anecdote or other questions about his children, declaring, This isn't part of the article." He wouldn't even listen to Susan Bartlett's charges. Later, he hand-delivered a written response to the charges he hadn't heard: I can only pity anyone whose life is based upon personal revenge and lust for money. It's not unusual for one's ex to say derogatory or untrue things.")
Susan is asked, Why does Bartlett invent so many stories? His self-esteem is terribly low, and he lives in a make-believe world," she says. While we were married, he lied about things that were not important. Once he said it enough, he believed it."
There are too many more examples to cite. From almost the largest thing to the smallest one, Gary Bartlett's version of his past does not completely check out. It is amazing after a while to place the calls and, one after the other, have such conflicting versions of his history continue to emerge.
It is not impossible, of course, that he is telling the truth about Joseph Stedino; it is not impossible that Bartlett really did not tell Stedino about legislators who could be bribed. Even fantasizers punctuate their fantasies with facts.
What is impossible is that, when prosecutors elected to go ahead with the sting," they were relying upon the advice of someone they had a reason to trust.
The men who created AzScam looked to Joseph Stedino, who told them he was relying upon Gary Bartlett, whether he actually was or not. Upon the strength of recommendations from these two, AzScam was born.
That is how badly the men who created the sting" wanted it to happen.
IT HAS TAKEN this long for so many details of the sting's beginnings to come to light, primarily through the depositions of Stedino that were taken in preparation for Carolyn Walker's and Ron Tapp's trial. Stedino has talked about his life and the way it led him straight to AzScam.
He has revealed that he grew up in Pittsburgh with the sort of boys-Chucky Porter, Mike Genovese-who later became capos in the Pittsburgh mob. Stedino first got into bookmaking in Pittsburgh when he was 15, while working as a cab driver on fake ID that declared him to be 25. He had already dropped out of school then-he didn't complete the ninth grade-and was living on his own, but he was blessed with an entrepreneurial spirit. He started in a small way, booking the other cab drivers' bets on sporting events. By the time he was 20, he was dealing illegal craps and blackjack in an after-hours club, and was delivering payoffs to the police. While still in Pittsburgh, he was convicted of white slavery, a felony, when he arranged work for a woman he knew through a madam. He served three years on the charge.
He moved to Las Vegas while still a young man, in order to be around legitimate gambling. He dealt blackjack in some of the major hotels there, and made the connection that led to a job as a host on an all-night television program. He says he left Las Vegas to avoid the police, who had long hassled him for payoffs. Because he was an ex-felon, he says, one officer in particular would kick in Stedino's door and tear the house apart unless Stedino agreed to bribe him.
In Los Angeles, he ran massage parlors and was convicted of pimping. In San Diego, he worked for a lawyer who defended organized crime figures. On his second sojourn to Vegas, he inadvertently stumbled into an education in sting" operations when he became ensnared in one himself: He agreed to cash $150,000 in travelers' cheques that he believed to be stolen, that were actually delivered to him by an informant. He served nine months in the early Eighties, but not because he didn't try to avoid it. On the advice of counsel, Stedino played crazy" for the psychiatrist assigned to evaluate him by the courts: He removed his dentures and mussed his hair and acted as bizarre as one could possibly act," he has said. It didn't work.
part 2 of 4
THERE GOES THE "JUDGE" DID AZSCCAM RUIN ... v4-29-92
