Phoenix News Blog

 

A woman who took a 3-year-old neighbor boy to the store and bought him a Tootsie Roll faces a charge of custodial interference after sparking fears of a kidnapping.

Cops scoured the streets near 32nd Street and Indian School for more than a half an hour on Friday evening, trying to help a panicked mother whose toddler went missing. Police say the boy's mother had been in her apartment, caring for an infant and glancing often out her open door at the grassy courtyard outside, where her little boy and other children were playing.

About 6:30 p.m., she suddenly realized the child had vanished. When the other kids told her that a woman had walked off with the boy, she punched 911 on her phone.

 

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After a brief, but intense, search, police found Ronda Williams, 50, (above) walking in the parking lot of a nearby strip mall. The kid had a Tootsie Roll she had bought him, police say.

​Even the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs show isn't likely to touch this one:

A Tucson man was busted on Wednesday after state troopers found 700 pounds of marijuana in the septic tank truck he was driving.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety stopped the truck on Interstate 19 near Tubac and found numerous wrapped bundles (hopefully watertight) in the tank -- along with human waste. It was quite the disgusting mess, confirms DPS spokesman Bart Graves.

Leornard Salcido, 24, faces various marijuana-related charges.

 

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Jeremy Kent

​A Glendale man who shot and wounded a Glendale police officer was sentenced to 24 years in prison by a Maricopa County Superior Court judge.

Prosecutors charged 29-year-old Jeremy Kent with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault, and misconduct involving weapons following the 2006 shooting of Glendale police Officer Jeremy Esh.

Kent, according to prosecutors, was involved in a high-speed chase on December 16, 2006, when he crashed the car he was driving and tried to flee on foot.

Police got out of their cars and began to chase Kent when he pulled a gun and started shooting.

An alleged crime ring tied to local nightclubs, high-end car dealerships and the hip-hop community used millions in cash from a Mexico media family -- but authorities don't know why.

With officials including Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon in attendance, police outlined the highlights of a suspected white-collar crime spree that resulted in the arrests of five people last week. Two of those arrested, Mario de la Fuente Manriquez and his son, Mario de la Fuente Mix, funneled at least $16 million to the United States, where it was used to set up and run clubs and car dealerships under false pretenses, police say.

Katie Marie Peters, Nazreth Derboghossian and Mario de la Fuente Mix.

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"It was their money," Detective Jeff Kornegay said. "We don't have any reason to believe it came from illegal sources."

We described the alleged schemes in blog posts on Thursday and today.

Some of the items seized in search warrants related to the arrests.

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Eight-month old Gabriel Johnson was last seen alive in San Antonio, Texas

​Elizabeth Johnson, the mother of the missing eight-month old baby, Gabriel Johnson, appeared before a Maricopa County Superior Court judge this morning, via-video feed from the Maricopa County Jail and pleaded not guilty to charges relating to the child's disappearance.

Johnson pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping, child abuse and custodial interference stemming from the December disappearance of the baby.

After not appearing at a December custody hearing, Johnson disappeared with the baby and went to San Antonio, Texas, where Gabriel was last seen alive.

While on the run, Johnson sent text messages to the baby's father, Logan McQueary saying she had killed the baby and put his body in a dumpster.

She later recanted her claims and said she gave the baby to a random couple she met at a park in San Antonio.

Initially, Tempe police were optimistic that the baby was still alive but have since changed their tune as tips in the case slowed.

Over the weekend, police in San Antonio -- as well as officers from the Tempe Police Department -- searched dumpsters and landfills in Bexar County, Texas, looking for the baby's body. The search turned up nothing.

So, could Johnson get hit with a murder charge if the baby's body is never recovered? Yes, but it would be difficult.

The roundup of alleged crime ring members we told you about on Thursday also snared Mario de la Fuente Manríquez, a Mexican media mogul who owns cable TV companies, a Nogales, Sonora TV station and newspaper.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, and police officials are scheduled to hold a 2 p.m. news conference today about the bust.

News of the busts has made headlines in Arizona and Mexico and is also causing a buzz in the hip-hop community. Music producer Swizz Beatz was a close associate of the suspects, and reportedly is the godfather to the son of suspects Nazreth Derboghossian and Jodi Upton.
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As we reported, Manriquez's son, Mario de la Fuente Mix, was picked up in Nogales, Arizona and arrested last week with Derboghossian and Katie Marie Peters, who police nabbed at their Valley homes. The Latin American Herald Tribune reported over the weekend that Manriquez was also taken into custody in Nogales, Arizona, though we haven't confirmed that. The Herald Tribune cites another paper, the El Diaro in Mexico, which is said to be part of the De La Fuente family's holdings.

According to the newspaper:

The De la Fuente family has a history of doing business in Tucson and Phoenix. All of the charges are being investigated in Maricopa County, in Phoenix, where the businessmen are being interrogated," the newspaper said.

The De la Fuentes "are fully disposed to clear up any doubts the authorities" may have about their activities, El Diario de Sonora said.

De la Fuente Manríquez is president of Omni Cable, the umbrella corporation that owns Diario de Sonora newspaper and TV station, Canál 3, in Nogales, Sonora. The network spans the entire length of the Sonora-Arizona border, from San Luis Río Colorado, Puerto Peñasco, Caborca, Nogales, Magdalena de Kino, Santa Ana, Cananea and Agua Prieta.

The elder De La Fuente's brother, Lorenzo de la Fuente Manríquez, was mayor of Nogales, Sonora, between 2003 and 2006 under the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

The "Deja vu Bandit"

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With the capture of the "First-Aid Bandit," later dubbed the "Band-Aid Bandit," last week, there appeared to be an opening for a poorly named bandit to start robbing Phoenix banks. Not to worry -- the "Déjà vu Bandit" has filled that void.

Agents in the FBI's Phoenix office are looking for the Valley's latest bank-robbing "bandit," who agents have given the name "Déjà vu Bandit."

How does someone with a cool-sounding, um, profession like "bandit" get such a lame word as déjà vu tacked onto the front of his moniker, you ask? Just don't change your clothes and rob banks on the same street.

The feds dubbed this guy the "Déjà vu Bandit" because he robbed two banks on the same Phoenix street and wore the exact same clothes in each robbery.

How, um, clever.

According to the federal fuzz, the "bandit" struck two Phoenix banks this week -- a US Bank near 35th and Southern avenues and an Arizona Federal Credit Union near 15th Street and Southern Avenue -- and in each case he made off with an undisclosed amount of cash.

Three people arrested yesterday have been accused of bilking a bank out of $750,000 and running a network of shady businesses with the infusion of millions of dollars of capital from Mexico.

The crimes spanned the last decade, police say, and included businesses that would be familiar to many readers, including:

* CBNC, the Scottsdale nightclub at McDowell and Scottsdale roads, which closed in 2007.


* Scorch Club at Desert Ridge. Problems with code violations targeted
by authorities in 2008, as detailed in an Arizona Republic article at
the time, apparently led to the arrests.

Images: Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

Katie Marie Peters, Nazreth Derboghossian and Mario de la Fuente Mix

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*Exotic Auto Sales and Leasing, and Scottsdale Lotus, both in Scottsdale. Eric Edenholm, the current owner of Scottsdale Lotus, tells New Times that one of the suspects owned the company for about four months in 2001.

The former owner, Nazreth Derboghossian, 50, of Phoenix, is now accused of 102 felony counts, including conspiracy, fraudulent schemes, assisting in a criminal syndicate, theft by extortion, and other crimes,  according to court documents.

Katie Marie Peters, 28, of Glendale, is potentially on the hook for 21 felony counts related to the alleged schemes, such as conspiracy, money-laundering, forgery, and fraud, and Mario de la Fuente Mix, of Nogales, Mexico, is accused of 13 similar felony counts.

The court records also name a fourth defendant, Jodi Upton, who apparently hasn't yet been apprehended or charged.

www.seekcodes.com

​Did you hear the one about the guy who broke into a head shop and stole $300 worth of fake weed? Probably not, because it's not a joke -- some idiot actually did it on Monday night in Flagstaff.

In the police blotter of yesterday's Arizona Daily Sun, there is a report of a burglary at the Kind Connection Tattoo and Smoke Shop, where the burglar only stole two things: an incense vaporizer and $300 worth of fake marijuana.

According to the report, the burglar bashed in the store's front window -- setting off its alarm system -- went in, um, looted the store, and left.

When store employees responded to the alarm they found that the only things missing were the vaporizer and a stash of Spice Gold, a legal herb that often substitutes as fake weed. 

Since those of us at New Times are (ahem) unfamiliar with the effects of marijuana or its substitutes, we called Kind Connection to find out if this stuff can get someone even a little bit high. Unfortunately, nobody answered. We understand, though. It's a head shop so it was probably, um, wishful thinking to assume that someone would be at work at 2 p.m. on a Thursday.

So we turned to the Internet to get the skinny on the this bunk weed and found several testimonials to its effectiveness.

​A Mexican national suspected of murdering a woman in 2003 was busted by U.S. Border Patrol agents near Nogales.

Guzman Badilla-Corona, 28, better known in the crystal-meth community as "Indio," was trying to cross back into the United States from Mexico when he got picked up by border agents.

America's Most Wanted

Guzman Badilla-Corona

​After running Badilla-Corona's fingerprints through a national database, agents realized that not only was he wanted for a murder that happened on the Gila River Indian Reservation, he was also a minor celebrity after appearing on the crime show America's Most Wanted.

On October 21, 2003, when Badilla-Corona was just 21, he murdered 19-year-old Marvina White after a verbal altercation with the woman's boyfriend, Carlos Ibarra, according to authorities.

The argument, authorities say, prompted Badilla-Corona and another man, Javier Juarez, to follow the couple as they left a grocery store on the reservation.

A car driven by Juarez pulled up next to Ibarra's car as he and White were driving on Casa Blanca Road, and Juarez fired two shots into the couple's vehicle. He then handed the gun to Badilla-Corona, who fired more shots, one of which hit White in the head, killing her.


 

A Phoenix meth addict woke up from his pipe dream early Sunday morning and began viciously attacking his 85-year-old mother, thinking his house was under attack by an intruder.

The woman, Eva Fitzgerald, called 911 just after 2:30 a.m. and told police that her son was hitting her. Operators could hear the maniacal shouting of Robert Troutt, 55, in the background.

​Police drove to a mobile home at 2701 E. Utopia Road, where they could hear screaming coming from inside. Troutt (left) charged police when they entered and soon found himself in handcuffs, court records state.

Fitzgerald, covered in blood and barely conscious, was lying on the floor in the kitchen. Her right ear had been nearly torn off. Doctors later determined that Fitzgerald had bleeding in her brain, fractured ribs and numerous cuts and bruises. Troutt was also injured -- he had broken the knuckles in his right hand.

Elizabeth Johnson (left) and 8-month-old Gabriel Johnson, who has not been seen since December 26.

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The highly publicized search for the Tempe baby who went missing in December has hit a roadblock, but a babysitter, who may be one of the last people to see the child alive, is describing her time with the 8-month-old to San Antonio news outlets.

From everything that has been reported, remaining hope of finding the kid alive is bleak.

Analisa Urias, a babysitter in San Antonio, Texas, where Gabriel Johnson reportedly was last seen alive, says she was alarmed by the instructions she was given by the baby's mother, 23-year-old Elizabeth Johnson, who is now in custody in Arizona.

Urias says she answered a Craigslist ad for a babysitter, which took her to the Homegate Studios and Suites, the hotel in San Antonio where Johnson was staying with the baby while on the run. She says the hotel was dirty, and there was a large butcher's knife on the nightstand next to the bed.

When Urias asked what she would need to do for the baby, she says Johnson "told me that she had already drugged him up with medicine, but that if he started crying, just to give him some more to shut up," according to WOAI 4 in San Antonio.

"I was trying to play with him, to make him happy while I was there, but everything I was doing didn't seem to work," she continues. "He wouldn't cry, but just had this sad look on his face."

Johnson, according to Urias, was agitated before she left and was dressed like she was going to a party. When she returned about two hours later, Urias says she seemed much more relaxed. She said she did not know where the woman had gone that night.

A rodeo performer accused of torching his Carefree-area home in 2007 to collect the insurance money has been arrested after more than a year on the lam.

Aaron Jeter, 41, conspired with two other men to burn down the custom-built home at 613 West Galvin, just north of Carefree, a Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy stated in court paperwork.

After removing several cherished items from Jeter's home, the men -- Russell Dalrymple and Justin Harju -- started the fire with the help of 40 gallons of gasoline, records state.

Image: Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

Aaron Wesley Jeter

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The home was destroyed in just a few minutes, says Daisy Mountain Fire Department spokesman, Phil Byer.

Harju, 26, was severely burned in the fire. He managed to get out before authorities arrived, but later called the Sheriff's Office and 'fessed up. When Dalyrymple, 45, was arrested in Oklahoma a few weeks later, he told deputies that he'd committed arson as a favor to Jeter, "out of loyalty to the Jeter family."

You just don't see loyalty like that too much anymore, do you?

James Bassett

​Police are asking for the public's help in tracking down a man they believe stole thousands of dollars from a charter school in Chandler.

Stealing from a school -- how, um, classy.

Authorities say James Bassett, along with his wife, Laurie Bassett, embezzled more than $20,000 from the Dobson Academy School in Chandler, where Laurie Bassett worked in the finance department.

The scheme -- if it is even worthy of that distinction -- doesn't sound all that complicated, either.

Apparently, while working in the school's finance office, Laurie Bassett would file bogus invoices for janitorial and school supplies and then just write her husband a check from the school in that amount.

Not exactly Oceans Eleven but the pair managed to get away with it for about a year.

www.hilaryshepard.com

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In what teacher Alex Chambers describes as actions leading to the ultimate failing grade for breaking and entering, an alleged copper thief is in critical condition after falling through the ceiling at Bret Tarver Elementary School in Phoenix.

Teachers at the school found the F-getting thief unconscious on the floor in one of the school's classrooms about 6:45 a.m. today.

Police say he could have been there since at least Saturday and that he was in the school trying to steal copper wiring.

The man, according to police, got into the school through the roof and was in a small area between the roof and the ceiling trying to cut copper wires when the ceiling gave way and he went crashing down to a concrete floor.

​A lawyer in Ohio pleaded guilty yesterday to money laundering charges stemming from money he received from the leader of a drug ring based in Phoenix.

Authorities say 40-year-old Kyle Hunter received more than $100,000 from convicted drug king-pin Leonard Barnhouse. Payment for services rendered, right? Wrong -- Barnhouse paid Hunter in cash and Hunter never reported it to authorities, despite knowing his, um, client was a known drug dealer.

www.frylake.com

​The U.S.Attorney's Office in Phoenix announced that the man convicted of leading four Guatemalans to a watery death has been sentenced to close to 10 years in prison.

Juan Pablo Moreno-Gonzalez, 27, was sentenced to 115 months in federal prison for his role in the deaths of the four men, whom he was trying to sneak into the country illegally.

Moreno-Gonzalez pleaded guilty in October 2008 to conspiracy to transport illegal aliens into the country after admitting to authorities he was helping illegals sneak in so he could make a little cash.

The run-of-the-mill smuggling operation hit a snag, however, when four Guatemalans Moreno-Gonzalez was supposedly helping drowned in an irrigation canal the men were trying cross.

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A Tempe woman, who was denied parental custody rights last week and then drove her 8-month-old son to Florida, has been caught and will be brought back to Arizona. The baby, however, has not been found and the mother isn't talking.

Elizabeth Johnson, 23, was denied custody of her son, Gabrielle, on December 28 after she skipped a custody hearing. Johnson, police say, had left Arizona on December 18 and went to San Antonio, where she tried to give the child up for adoption.

Police say Johnson has threatened to harm the baby in the past and while on the run, sent text messages to the child's father, Logan McQueary, saying she had killed the baby and that "there was no way in hell you're ever going to see your son again."

 

We had no idea that Paradise Valley's veteran judge, Elsa Lynch, was in a peck of legal trouble when she told us in July about her upcoming retirement.

Forgive us for momentarily losing our suspicious mind.

A few weeks after our chat, it turns out, Lynch was indicted by a federal grand jury for theft and bank fraud. Lynch, 59, a Gilbert resident, pleaded guilty today to one count of theft of government property, says the U.S. Attorney's office in Arizona. She faces up to a year in jail when she's sentenced on March 16 by U.S. Magistrate Judge David Duncan.

​Authorities say Lynch stole more than $15,000 in U.S. Veterans Affairs Compensation and Pension benefits by using the name of her deceased mother. She even signed her mom's name on four checks, according to an August news release from the U.S. Attorney's office.

courtesy of intellectualconservative.com

Rachel Alexander will be handling the RICO litigation

​Deputy County Attorney Lisa Aubuchon -- long considered Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas' hatchet-woman for politically sensitive cases -- is no longer handling the racketeering lawsuit that Thomas' office filed against a host of county officials.

Instead, the RICO suit will be now be handled by one of the few attorneys in Thomas' office perceived to be even more political than Aubuchon: conservative blogger-turned-special assistant Rachel Alexander.

The bizarre lawsuit, now being handled by Alexander, accuses the county supervisors, some county judges, and other county employees of being a "criminal enterprise." Apparently these cronies conspired to -- gasp! -- build a new courthouse.

The move has insiders scratching their heads because Alexander is thought to be more involved in the global, strategic end of things instead of actually litigating, much less handling a case of this legal complexity.

Image: America's Most Wanted

Michael Chaves

​A guy trying to break into a home near Central Avenue and McDowell Road turned out to be a "star" of America's Most Wanted -- a suspect in the April beating death of a trucker's helper.

Phoenix police say they received a report of a man trying to force his way through the back door of a home about 9:30 p.m. near 300 West Lynwood. Fleet-footed cops arriving on the scene soon arrested Michael Chaves, 40, who -- police say -- admitted to a Connecticut murder that landed him on the popular real-crime show.

Chaves and the victim, Dale Anderson, both worked as "lumpers," or freelance truckers' assistants, according to the America's Most Wanted Web site. A trucker, after seeing the two together, found Anderson's bloodied body in the cab of his rig.

www.radicalantfarm.com

​A few hunters in the high country had a Stand By Me moment Sunday night, while in the mountains about 50 miles east of Prescott -- they found a badly decomposed dead body.

Police are trying to identify the body, but given the condition it was in when it was found, the body's not being very helpful.

The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office says the corpse was found partially covered near Stehr Lake and the Child's Power Plant Campground on Sunday night.

The county Medical Examiner's Office says the person who died is believed to have been between 20 and 40 years old, and the time of death was somewhere in the last year or so.

 

Jason Cottis

​For women doing any last-minute Christmas shopping, you may want to consider wearing pants next time you're shopping at the Target in Tempe Marketplace.

Tempe police arrested a man that has been walking around the store using a mirror to look up women's skirts, which is frankly one of the more creative methods of perving we've heard of in a while.

On Friday, police arrested 37-year-old Jason Michael Cottis on one felony count of Surreptitious Viewing.

Police say Cottis would go into the store, take one of the smaller hand baskets, and place a mirror in it. He would then walk around the store and set it down next to women wearing skirts in a feeble attempt to get a glance at their goods.

 

Alleged Peoria Pill Bandit Steven Hochuli, seen here robbing a CVS in Peoria on November 29

​They got him!

The man police believe is the infamous Peoria Pill Bandit is behind bars today, just days after cops increased the reward for information leading to his arrest from $2,000 to $5,000.

Police from Glendale and Peoria announced yesterday that they had taken 43-year-old Steven E. Hochuli of Phoenix into custody on one charge of armed robbery stemming from the November 29 pill heist of a CVS pharmacy in Peoria.

Hochuli is suspected of 11 robberies of other pharmacies in Glendale, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Surprise, and Tempe, over the last seven months.

The man in this photo is the infamous Pill Bandit. Anyone with information as to his identity is asked to call police.

​The reward for the Peoria Pill Bandit has been upped from $2,000 to $5,000, because despite having a clear-as-day picture of this guy's mug, police still can't track him down.

Bandit -- if you're reading -- 2K may seem like chump-change but think of all the pills you could get with $5 grand.

The bandit has been linked to at least 12 pharmacy robberies in Peoria, Scottsdale, Glendale, Phoenix, Surprise and Tempe.

Ronald Olivier

​Most trust-building exercises entail things like telling someone a secret or having someone fall backwards as the other person catches him or her. It seems 48-year-old Ronald Gene Olivier is unfamiliar with these approaches, because in attempt to "trust" his girlfriend, he chopped her finger off with a sword.

The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office says, on December 12, Olivier spent the majority of the day drinking beer and getting upset.

After getting good and hammered -- as well as nice and pissed off -- Olivier locked both his girlfriend and his mother in a room for no apparent reason and went and got his sword.

Smile, you're on Valley Metro TV. If you know this guy, Phoenix PD wants you to call.

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Phoenix police are looking for three people they say robbed a 16-year-old kid on December 10.

The unidentified teen was waiting at the bus stop on 7th Street and McDowell when two men walked up to him, held him at knifepoint, and demanded he hand over a silver necklace he was wearing.

The necklace was worth about $40 -- probably not the heist the suspects had hoped for. Guess a lot of petty criminals really are that stupid!

The first suspect is described as a black male, early 20s, about 6 feet tall, wearing blue zip-up hoodie, white undershirt, blue sweat pants, black shoes, and a white wife-beater.

Suspect number two is described as a black male, early 20s, 6 feet tall, 160 pounds, beard and mustache, black beanie, and a long blue shirt.

​Carey Pena broadcasts plenty of news about criminals in her role as investigative reporter for Channel 3 (KTVK-TV), but one thief has been operating right under her nose, according to Pena's Twitter feed.

Pena, whom we chatted with last year after she crossed swords with Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, tweeted on Friday:

found out our long time housekeeper's son (19) has been stealing from us. a lot. so very sad when you trust people and they betray.

Department of Public Safety

DPS officers taking a "fluffy bunny" into custody during yesterday's gangster roundup.

​In the past, criminal street gangs have used names that strike fear in the hearts of their rivals. The Bloods, the Crips, the Jets, the Sharks -- all have an intimidating connotation.

As for Scottsdale's latest group of thugs -- busted today as part of the Department of Public Safety's "Operation Triple Threat"-- not so much.

The "Fluffy Bunny Crew" is one of three criminal street gangs busted as part of the DPS' latest gangster roundup, but don't let the wimpy name fool you -- according to DPS officials, these are some pretty bad dudes.

DPS spokesman Steve Harrison tells New Times the gang is called the "Fluffy Bunnies" so that after they beat the crap out of somebody and that person has to tell their friends they got their asses kicked by a couple of "fluffy bunnies."

Gang assaults and home invasions aside -- at least these guys have a sense of humor.

Surveillance footage from one of the banks hit by the "High Country Bandits."

​Arizona's got a brand new pair of "bandits" that the FBI believes are linked to at least six bank robberies since October.

The FBI is calling the bank-robbing duo the "High Country Bandits" because the majority of their robberies have occurred in places like Payson and Prescott.