Flexibility sought on Navajo spill claims
BISBEE — Four statues from a roadside religious shrine were damaged near Bisbee on Wednesday evening, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office said.
The top portion of a Virgin Mary statue and the heads of three other religious statues were broken off near a freeway exit off State Route 80 outside Bisbee, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office said.
Each statue was inside a shelter that is open to the public.
“This shrine (as many others in our area) is well off of the roadway and on private property,” said Sheriff Mark J. Dannels in a post on his office’s Facebook page responding to a comment.
“The owners take exceptional care with maintaining the area in and around the shrine and it
PRESCOTT — An Arizona financial manager has been sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison and 12 years of probation after release for embezzling $260,000 from a planned community in Prescott.
The Daily Courier reported Wednesday that Joshua Lethbridge, former president of the Liberty Management Group, pleaded guilty in June to embezzling money from The Mountain Club throughout the course of 10 years.
Community resident Keith Fleming says The Mountain Club was “conned by a masterful criminal.”
Lethbridge apologized at his sentencing, saying it was always his intention to pay the money back, which is now required of him by a court.
WINDOW ROCK — The head of the Navajo Nation is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be flexible on the type of documentation it requires from tribal members asking for compensation for damages from a mine spill.
Navajo President Russell Begaye said Wednesday that not all members of the tribe kept receipts for the losses they suffered from the 2015 spill from the Gold King Mine in Colorado.
EPA officials didn’t immediately
FLORENCE — A jury is ready to hear a case against three Arizona inmates accused of attempting to murder a Pinal County jail officer.
The Casa Grande Dispatch reports that 26year-old Mauricio Moraga, 29-year-old Robert Villalobos and 27-year-old Santiago Sanchez are suspected of assaulting multiple Pinal County jail officers in September, including one officer who sustained life-threatening injuries.
The men were indicted on charges of assault and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Pinal County Superior Court Judge Kevin White says it took two full days to select the 14 jurors on Wednesday because several potential jurors had to be dismissed after they claimed they could not remain objective in a case where law-enforcement officers were harmed.
Man deported in 2011 found near Douglas
DOUGLAS — A Mexican man deported in 2011
TUCSON — Just months after the mayor of Tucson was carjacked at gunpoint, the city’s police chief is a victim of theft.
Chief Chris Magnus reported the incident to police Tuesday morning after discovering his car had been broken into.
His personal backpack with miscellaneous electronics was stolen.
Police say they have no suspects.
Magnus posted a photo of a smashed car window on Twitter, saying: “In my haste last night, I left my backpack in my car. Guess I had to learn that lesson (one I even preach!) the hard way.”
Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild was uninjured when a man carjacked him at gunpoint in February.
The carjacker went off with Rothschild’s city-issued car.
About 1,300 thefts from vehicles and 1,100 vehicle thefts have been reported in the last six months.
KINGMAN — An effort to create a code-enforcement fee of $3 per ton for trash taken to the landfill failed in a 2-2 vote by the Mohave County Board of Supervisors.
The Kingman Daily Miner reports that the proposed fee was brought before the board Monday by Development Services to fund a code-enforcement program that included an attorney, two more code-enforcement officers and a senior office assistant.
Two positions would have been transferred from Public Health to Development