Laurie Roberts lays out the Ben Quayle/Brock Landers story in all its porny glory
Yesterday, the Arizona Republic finally vouchsafed to its print clientele an overview of Ben Quayle’s sordid past associations with the ultraskanky web site Dirty Scottsdale.
This came after the election he was running in, but whatever.
Today Laurie Roberts, on whom we have a journalistic crush, finally limns the story the way the paper should have from the start:
So, to recap:.
He denied writing for the website, then he admitted writing for the website, saying he posted a handful of “fictional satirical comments.”
He denied that he is Brock Landers but he hasn’t denied writing under the name Brock Landers.
And he couldn’t recall whether he introduced Karamian to a lawyer for purposes of incorporating the website, but then later admitted that he hooked them up.
Now he says he’s “been consistent from the very beginning on this issue.”
7:47 AM
One of the more dispiriting things about the immigration bill...
…comes from this Laurie Roberts blog post yesterday:
A new Rasmussen Poll reports that 70 percent of likely voters in Arizona approve of the illegal immigration bill now on Gov. Jan Brewer’s desk.
Contrary to the national uproar, just 23 percent of likely Arizona voters oppose Senate Bill 1070, with six percent unsure. The poll of 500 people was conducted last week and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
7:17 AM
Laurie Roberts continues her campaign against the county probate court
Roberts, the Republic columnist, has been exposing what seems to be a deep and systemic problem in how the local courts handle guardianship cases.
She’s detailed some odd stories (see “PHXated hearts Laurie Roberts”). What seems to be happening is that certain adults for whatever reason come under the guardianship of the courts. The court appoints a network of lawyers and caregivers to watch the person—but it’s all paid for out of the person’s assets. At a certain point, the assets are gone. The lawyers and caregivers melt away, and the subject ends up under taxpayer care.
Today she goes after judge Lindsay Ellis, who studied one such case Roberts had been reporting on — but delivered a blistering defense of the status quo:
In a take-no-prisoners 21-page ruling issued Monday, Ellis described the fees that put Marie Long into the poorhouse as “reasonable, necessary and for the benefit of the ward.” She blamed Marie’s court-appointed attorney Jon Kitchel along with Dan Raynak and Pat Gitre, attorneys for Marie’s sisters, for driving up costs, saying their “venomous” and “hateful” attacks on the trustee, the guardian and their attorneys forced the other side to defend themselves.
With Marie’s money, of course.
The opinion was lauded by Sun Valley Group, which withdrew as Marie’s guardian when her money ran out in November. Says Sun Valley’s CEO, Peter Frenette: “I am grateful for the court’s decision as it finds ‘there is no legitimate dispute about SVG or its performance of its duties as guardian for Long.’ The court confirmed that this has been an unfair attack not just on SVG but also the guardianship process.”
Roberts continues:
I, too, am grateful for the court’s decision as it proves my point all along which is simply this: the court that is supposed to be protecting people like Marie Long is doing no such thing. Instead, the court is allowing a cozy group of lawyers and fiduciaries who are appointed to help vulnerable people help themselves to a nice pile of cash — until the money is gone, at which time the “ward” is dumped onto the taxpayers.
Then the court approves the spending, in this case in a ruling I like to call “Ellis in Wonderland.”
11:20 AM
PHXated hearts Laurie Roberts
… and we don’t care who knows it.
Roberts, the Republic columnist, has been all over an ongoing scandal out of Maricopa County probate court; certain people who have the bad luck to come under the supposed protection of the court have apparently would up with their estates drained of money by what seems to be high legal and care fees.
As you can imagine, what the certain people have in common is sizable chunks of money, or did until they were put under government protection.
The poster child of this has been Marie Long, who had a stroke in 2005. At the time she was worth $1.3 million. Now she’s broke and about to be evicted from her nursing home.
One of Roberts’ several columns on Long is here.
Today, Roberts had details on another probate court case, about a 49-year-old guy, Edward Ravenscroft, whose drug addictions got him in big legal trouble. Now, Ravenscroft is lucky; a lot of folks arrested for possession three times would be in prison. Fortunately for him, he’s a pharmaceuticals heir supposedly worth $5 million.
According to Roberts, felicitous circumstances like this — rich folks coming under the care of the probate court — triggers certain arrangemens:
In January 2009, attorney Paul Theut was named Ravenscroft’s guardian-ad-litem and within a month Theut asked that Sun Valley Group be brought in to oversee the millionaire’s estate. Ravenscroft, he wrote, cannot manage his affairs due to drug and mental-health issues and “has property that will be wasted or dissipated unless proper management is provided.”
So they proceeded to manage it for him.
According to court records, Theut collected $62,000 of Ravenscroft’s money in his first 3½ months as GAL. Larry Scaringelli was appointed his attorney after Commissioner Michael Hintze rejected Ravenscroft’s own choice of a lawyer. (Being the one to foot the bill, Ravenscroft thought he ought to have some say in the matter.) Scaringelli collected nearly $33,000 in his first five months. Sun Valley and the Maricopa County public fiduciary, which is Ravenscroft’s guardian, haven’t disclosed their take.
Neither Scaringelli nor Theut returned calls to explain their bills.
Ravenscroft is now locked out of his own house and is living on a friends couch. He tells Roberts that the charges now exceed a half-million dollars.
Roberts’ blog is one of the better ones in town. Here she is on some recent antics in the state legislature:
Apparently, all the state’s problems have been solved because Senate Appropriations Chairman Russell Pearce, one of the Legislature’s key members, has introduced a bill mandating that the state hang a copy of the Ten Commandments at the entrance to the state Capitol.
This is, of course, fantastic news for tens of thousands of Arizona’s children, who I’m guessing now won’t be summarily tossed out of the state’s health-care plan for the poor. And it must mean that our leaders have found a way to fully fund Child Protective Services so that the little children — the ones we could save if we fully funded the agency — won’t have to suffer.
1:40 AM