Disbarred attorney and ex-con Dick Berry stood before federal judge Robert Broomfield on Monday afternoon, trying to talk his way out of jail. Berry’s excuses were the same as they’ve been for more than two years, after Bankruptcy Court officials started coming down on him and his Tempe-based business, People’s…
Justice may be blind, but it’s certainly not deaf. At least not in the courtroom of Phoenix Municipal Court Judge Chris Kramer. Last week, Kramer sentenced Bonnie Scherer to 24 hours in Madison Street Jail for talking back. Scherer, 21, is seven months pregnant and a single mother of a…
New Times staff writer Terry Greene Sterling was named Arizona’s Journalist of the Year–marking the fifth straight year a New Times writer has won the honor. Sterling, who also captured the award in 1987 and 1989, won for a 1998 portfolio that included an exhaustive investigation into the Baptist Foundation…
When it comes to handouts for the mining industry, the Arizona Legislature is a bottomless pit. This year has been no exception. First things first: I’ve got to give the Arizona mining lobby credit. These guys are pros. The dean of dollar-digging at the Capitol is Jim Bush. Bush, Arizona…
The incessant monologue of hushed Spanish is the soundtrack to the hypnotic streams of Circle K reds and Burger King yellows that fan passengers crimped on cushioned alloy seats. Above, under phosphorescent light, multilingual signs assert “No Fire Arms” and “Out of Work? Need a Job? Call . . .”…
I’ve got one for you: Two guys in wraparound shades with “Wetback Power” gang tattoos saunter past a Maricopa County sheriff’s volunteer posse member. Both are openly armed with pistols and combat shotguns. The weekend cop looks ’em over and says, “Have a nice Sunday, guys.” It was all part…
Grand Stand The attempt to rape the taxpayers of Mesa (sales taxes and recouped taxes) and Arizona (recouped sales taxes) is small potatoes compared to the cost to taxpayers of the control of state, city and county governmental policies by promoters and developers (“House of Cards,” John Dougherty, April 8)…
I’m watching a snuff film, and it’s hard-core. The snuffers–there’s a pack of them, male and female–are in uniforms. Scott Norberg, the man who will be killed on film, has blond hair, jeans, no shirt. He is slumped down, back against a wall. He looks confused. It begins. A fat…
There’s a story about Suns rookie Gerald Brown that has reached legendary proportions. His parents, Gerald Sr. and Wendelene, believe the incident helped make their son a man. His coach at Carl Hayden High, Argie Rhymes, thinks it made his guard a better player. His friend and high school teammate…
“Keane paintings are my friends,” gushed actress Joan Crawford. An art critic from the New York Times checked in with a far different opinion, characterizing the couple’s work as “the very definition of tasteless hack work.” Eye or nay, there was no denying that artists Walter and Margaret Keane had…
Lynette Bibbee’s museum of maudlin art is not a pretty picture. In one strategically placed lithograph titled “No Dogs Allowed,” a wide-eyed waif and his equally optically overendowed poodle soulfully dare the viewer to look away. Avert your eyes to the print next to it, this one identified as “The…
In recent months, there’s been a lot written and said about the death of the Tempe scene. Apparently, the sheer accumulation of isolated events (the closing of Gibson’s, the deaths of Brad Singer and Elvis Del Monte, and the record-label woes of the Refreshments, Pistoleros, Pharoahs 2000, and Lo-Watts) has…
MODERN ROCK: 1. LES PAYNE PRODUCT This high-concept dynamic duo–born of a much reviled alt-rock quartet called Crime Dog–occupies a musical space all its own: You could call it minimalist garage funk-pop. Behind their sense of the absurd and fashion unpredictability, though, guitarist James Karnes and drummer Chris Pomerenke are…
Tribune Newspapers Publisher Karen Wittmer and Mesa Mayor Wayne Brown are continuing to squelch key information related to the Arizona Cardinals’ efforts to build a domed stadium in west Mesa. Their behind-the-scenes strategy, launched last summer, has resulted in the Tribune using its editorial pages to strongly support a plan…
For more than two years, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office withheld a videotape that contains key evidence in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by a paraplegic, Richard Post, whose single night strapped to a restraint chair in Madison Street Jail in 1996 caused him permanent neck damage. When the sheriff’s office…
Sterling, who won the award in 1987 and 1989, was chosen for a portfolio of work that included an investigation into the financial dealings of the Baptist Foundation of Arizona.
“There is a phone booth,” goes a story born on the Internet, “in the middle of the desert.” It’s all alone out in the Mojave, a forgotten telephone network anomaly. And there’s this guy, a Tempe resident named Godfrey Daniels, who loves it. He didn’t discover the booth–some letter-writer to…
Sam I Am Ticked Scottsdale’s head cheerleader isn’t the most popular girl in the class right now. Mayor Sam Campana, who clawed her way to the top of Arizona’s Outdoor Mall from humble beginnings as a baton twirler in Filer, Idaho, has doubled her negative ratings in a recent, top-secret…
Up in Arms While reading the April 1 article on Arm the Homeless (“Give Piece a Chance”) by Inda House (she is very good, by the way; I’m looking forward to her next piece), I was inspired to form my own organization to take on another societal problem that also…
When The Pistoleros singer Lawrence Zubia decided to kill himself after years of depression and drug abuse, for some reason the familiar buttes of Monument Valley came to him in a cocaine-addled haze. Zubia had no gun. And he’d already ingested enough drugs to kill a normal person. Instead, he…
Forget the Super Bowl. The Arizona Cardinals’ biggest victory for decades to come will arrive May 18, if Mesa voters approve a $385 million sales-tax hike that will help finance a 67,400-seat football stadium. For the first time since arriving in the Valley 11 years ago, the Cardinals are displaying…
Bank One Ballpark Rio Salado Crossing Taxpayer funds for construction $238 million $654 million (with interest)* Taxpayer funds for operation and maintenance $0 $163 million through year 2028* Annual naming rights fee paid by team to district $325,000 $250,000 Rent: $1 million** $1.75million*** Seats: 48,500 67,400 Features: Retractable dome Retractable…
