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Nick R. Martin

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East Valley Tribune
I have worked off and on at the Tribune since 2003. These are selected stories from that paper.


September 10, 2008 | East Valley Tribune
Death of a mom turned drug runner
For months, the case baffled authorities. Had she been killed? Did she run off with the money? If so, where did she go? The trail had grown cold. The questions eventually led to a landfill in southern Arizona, but also to the firing of the state's top federal prosecutor. It is among the most tangled and bizarre cases in recent state history.

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August 10, 2008 | East Valley Tribune
Fatal Flight
A new lawsuit is raising serious questions about the safety of helicopters made in Mesa and used by law enforcement agencies around the world, including on patrols along the U.S. border.

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March 3, 2008 | East Valley Tribune
Charges could rest on church law
A state grand jury may soon be asked to do what perhaps no other has before: consider religious law in deciding whether to charge someone with a crime.

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March 1, 2008 | East Valley Tribune
Humetewa puts duty above politics
The indictment of Republic Congressman Rick Renzi was a defining moment for Arizona's top federal prosecutor, Diane Humetewa, showing she may have found her way through the political fog of the U.S. attorneys scandal.

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February 12, 2008 | East Valley Tribune
Wrongly Convicted
A confession by another woman forced the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix to drop its case against 38-year-old Rachel Jernigan, who was awaiting a new trial after a panel of federal judges overturned her bank robbery conviction last year.

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December 21, 2007 | East Valley Tribune
Johnson Ranch developer settles legal siege for $7M
George Johnson was once quoted as saying he had "more money than God." But for all his money, the successful East Valley developer couldn't shoo away the ghosts of his failed attempt to turn a huge chunk of Pinal County desert into a massive masterplanned housing community known as La Osa Ranch.

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November 19, 2007 | East Valley Tribune
Officials spar over illegals
Increasingly, two of the Valley's law-enforcement heavyweights have been facing off over the hotly political issue of illegal immigration.

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October 12, 2007 | East Valley Tribune
A life lost between the cracks
The cruel way Jose Luis Velasco-Garcia died -- lying on the pavement while his groceries were looted -- shocked many in Mesa, but it hit particularly hard at Queen of Peace Catholic Church where many knew him by sight, if not by name.

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May 26, 2007 | East Valley Tribune
Officer in rap video complained of bias
Two weeks before he filmed a television scene that ignited a racial uproar, a Tempe police sergeant complained that he himself was the victim of racial discrimination.

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February 10, 2007 | East Valley Tribune
US Airways CEO admits 2 prior DUI convictions
"My mistake of last week was just that -- a mistake, not a trend -- and I believe that events from 15 and 20 years ago do not reflect on the person I am today," CEO Doug Parker wrote in a statement.

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February 9, 2007 | East Valley Tribune
US Airways CEO is DUI suspect
Just hours after losing a $10 billion bid to take over Delta Air Lines last week, US Airways' top executive Doug Parker was arrested in Scottsdale on suspicion of drunken driving.

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February 5, 2007 | East Valley Tribune
'StreetBeat' suits take varied tacks
The disparities signal two vastly different legal strategies by the men's lawyers to get money for what they believe was a violation of their clients' civil rights.

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January 31, 2007 | East Valley Tribune
Meet the next possible drug crisis: Yaba
"And I'm thinking, I know meth. I know the meth world. What could be worse than methamphetamine?" said the head of the state's meth task force. Their answer? Yaba. It recently surpassed heroin as the most abused drug in Thailand and is ravaging that nation. Now there are signs it is headed toward the West.

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December 22, 2006 | East Valley Tribune
Family seeks justice for botched police raid
Sonia Celaya stared at the ground, her hands smudged with black, her face hard. The Phoenix house her parents lived in for 35 years stood behind her, gutted and charred. It smelled of water and burned wood. She had been living there, too, and everything she and her parents owned was destroyed.

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December 21, 2006 | East Valley Tribune
Tempe won't punish officers for racial video
Tempe blamed but did not punish two police officers for a city-produced TV program that showed one officer telling two black men they could dodge a littering ticket by performing a rap.

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December 2, 2006 | East Valley Tribune
Tempe mayor calls cop video 'unacceptable'
Tempe's mayor and police chief spent much of Friday again apologizing for a police-produced television program that showed an officer telling two black men they could get out of a ticket by performing a rap.

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December 1, 2006 | East Valley Tribune
Apologies flow freely for racial police video
A television show produced by Tempe police aired on the city's cable channel showing a white police officer telling two black men they could get out of a ticket if they performed a rap.

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November 8, 2006 | East Valley Tribune
Shock jock upset over radio caller's slaying claim
"I would rather this call didn't come in and this didn't happen," said shock jock Tom Leykis. "I hope that this ... is just a hoax and she's just a bad prank caller."

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September 20, 2006 | East Valley Tribune
Ex-ASU leader facing U.S. boot
Even from jail in southern Arizona, Yaser Alamoodi is campaigning. But the 29-year-old Saudi, who was student government president last year at Arizona State University, is not running for office or fighting a ballot proposition. He's fighting to stay in the U.S.

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March 4, 2006 | East Valley Tribune
Police arrest Miller in 5 Mesa killings
A man who for days denied any involvement in a Mesa quintuple homicide and claimed he had an alibi, is arrested in the shooting deaths of the five people, including two children.

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September 16, 2005 | East Valley Tribune
Sikhs still living in the shadow of Sept. 11
Four years after a turbaned Sikh from India was gunned down outside his Mesa convenience store, Sikhs as well as Muslim and Arab Americans, still face regular discrimination in the Valley and across the nation.

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