The Two Years Code War is over, although it’s difficult to say who won. Dallas’ protracted struggle with the Topletz family, one of the city’s biggest owners of slum properties, ended recently with a wheeze: a lawsuit settlement that, in the nature of such things, gave in on both sides…
Belo Corp. delivered historic preservationists a fait accomplis this week, quietly securing a permit to demolish a historic 10-story building in the West End and then announcing its intentions as the wrecking ball was being hoisted into place. “There’s nothing wrong with the building,” said Ron Emrich, a member of…
Perhaps you remember this cheating scandal. Three and half years ago, a junior lawyer from Dallas-based Baron & Budd accidentally handed an opposing lawyer an internal memo that appeared to coach clients to lie about central facts in asbestos liability cases. “With this document, you could almost go down the…
For Bill Jones, it was the “biggest weakness” question that first had him wondering about job candidate James Simmons. Simmons was interviewing to become the new senior pastor at the White Rock Community Church, and someone popped him the old job-interview standby. He answered, “I guess it’s that I’m a…
“I’m off like a prom dress,” says Shannon Ritch, finishing an afternoon of 330-pound bench presses–not bad for a guy who weighs 190 tops. He brushes back his bleached-blond flattop, adjusts a black T-shirt over his T-bone shoulders, and swaggers toward the door. The aggressive blare of Limp Bizkit and…
Just before Trina McReynolds was carjacked, she remembers being in the crowded drive-through lane at the Cityplace Whataburger. Things were going down that could only happen at 2:30 a.m., during the after-the-bars-close Saturday night rush. A young woman in the BMW in front of her was leaning out the driver-side…
His looks could not have helped. That’s the first thing you think as you watch Edward Lee Stevenson lower his large, lumpy frame onto a visiting-room stool. His face appears narrow and squirrel-like, compressed as it is by goggle-size bifocals and limp, gray-black hair. His teeth, noticeably misaligned and punctuated…
For nearly three years they have claimed that Dallas developer Lou Reese hid an ill-gotten S&L fortune overseas rather than pay his creditors and the U.S. government. Now they say they found the treasure map. Advantage Capital Group, a Phoenix-based collection agency that has pursued Reese through an elaborate sting…
The episode started with plans for strawberry shortcake, moved through discussion of important banana and hamburger precedents, and ended with accusations that might have Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton reaching for the Rolaids. Because of the fruit involved, it has one lawyer making references to The Caine Mutiny, the fictional…
David Dean says he was fighting for justice, equity, and due process–that and the right to build a new closet wherever he damned pleased. The Swiss Avenue Historic District homeowner ended up proving that with friends in high places, a good lawyer, a public relations pro, and a willingness to…
The brick house on Good Shepherd Drive in the West Texas town of Brownwood seems an unlikely place for the headquarters of a minority-owned Dallas company with a big city contract. A wreath of plastic sunflowers hangs on the front door, two Cadillacs fill the garage, and a six-foot satellite…
The business used a lot of cable and amplifiers and low-tech electronic gadgets with names like “load isolators” and “heliax.” That much is evident on the videotape his daughter’s attorney shot a few weeks after Randy James Angle went on the lam.Inside Angle’s shop in an industrial section of Garland…
In less than a month, Dallas voters with time on their hands will flock to the polls by the dozens to consider whether DART should be allowed to sell bonds to speed expansion of its light rail system.
In one of the remarkable horse-racing passages in Jane Smiley’s new novel, a first-time jockey named Roberto aboard a workaday thoroughbred named Justa Bob lets the gentle beast do the thinking. The horse, running in perfect tempo like a metronome, avoids the rail and picks his way through various openings…
Did the city of Dallas deliberately blow a permit hearing last month and let the much-dissed Baby Dolls topless club stay open another year at Bachman Lake? Neighborhood opponents of strip clubs, who believed the city had a slam-dunk case against granting the permit, are convinced that’s what happened. “The…
Over espresso and orange juice, Dallas developer Louis Garfield Reese III huddled with several would-be business partners in a suite in Milan’s four-star Excelsior Hotel. Amid sophisticated chatter about the charms of Florence and Milan, Reese ran through a series of possible real estate deals in Hawaii and Dallas, most…
Dallas police ignored or dismissed Assistant City Attorney Robin Page’s claims that she was the target of a deliberate smear campaign, so now they have a federal lawsuit to defend. That’s how Page’s attorney, David Miller, puts it, although he says his client wants more than an apology for being…
East Dallas’ second-story men, smash-and-grab specialists, and plain old-fashioned burglars can breathe easier now. Willetta Stellmacher has hung up her little pearl-handled .25. For 26 years, until her retirement earlier this year at age 83, Stellmacher reigned over The Square apartments with a gun, a rigid — some would say…
Studio portraits of the mayor and 13 council members decorate a side wall in the cavernous, glass-and-concrete atrium at Dallas City Hall. There should be 14 council photos, but behind a strategically placed fig tree, there’s only an empty spot where the smile of District 8’s longtime councilman, Al Lipscomb,…
Dallas Community Television’s studios usually don’t get busy until after 5 p.m., when people get off their real jobs and turn to shooting, producing, and editing Dallas’ public access TV fare. On a recent Friday evening, El Centro College student Vernon Hadnot was in one editing room, using computer graphics…
Nearly a hundred lawyers filled the Routh Street Brewery’s private party room one hot evening last summer. The faux rustic setting — hewn limestone walls, antler-trimmed cabinets, and weathered rafters — echoed with the clink of beer steins, the hum of conversation. In attendance were many of the city’s top…
A series of lawsuits against anti-fur protesters — the latest naming John Paul Goodwin and his Dallas-based organization as defendants — appears to be opening a new front in the conflict between retailers and activists, who are facing some of the same legal weapons developed and used over the years…
