On the evening of October 29, 2010, Matthew Tate and other Dallas police officers were conducting a sweep of the Cedar Garden apartment complex in east Oak Cliff when they came upon Tobias Mackey. According to officers’ accounts, Mackey began to reach into his waist band when ordered to show…
Dr. Meenakshi Prabhakar, an infectious disease specialist, probably wishes August would hurry up and end already. Earlier this month, we wrote about Prabhakar’s receptionist, who sued the doctor for allegedly forcing her to get an abortion. Why? Tough to say. But someone from Prabhakar’s office told us it was a…
John MuseJohn Muse is the ‘M’ of HM Capital Partners, the private equity firm he co-founded with former Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks in 1989. It was for a while one of the most recognized leveraged buyout firms in the country before it all but collapsed when the tech bubble…
A Parker County man who can ignite a 2-foot flame with gas siphoned from his well water won’t get relief in a state appeals court under a law intended to stifle abusive litigation. Steve Lipsky says natural-gas producer Range Resources contaminated his water well with its nearby fracking operations. Range…
A split three-judge panel of a federal appeals court rejected an EPA rule that would curb the drift of harmful power plant pollutants across state lines. The agency, the majority ruled, had overstepped its authority under the Clean Air Act. The legal challenge was mounted by a number of states…
Two months ago, a judge in New York granted a request by the U.S. government issued a warrant for the arrest of one Tyrannosaurus bataar. The dinosaur’s skeleton, which Dallas-based Heritage Auctions had attempted to sell the previous month, was suspected of being in the country illegally, having been illegally…
Outside Cowboys Stadium, near entrance E, is a black, marble bench. As things that are black and marble tend to do, the bench gets hot when exposed to the summer sun. Jennelle Carrillo says she discovered this the hard way when, on August 10, 2010, she sat down to wait…
Zahed Lateef was a born entrepreneur. His family emigrated to the United States from India as a kid, and he was soon hard at work. He established a lawn-mowing business when he was 11 then, after graduating from high school a year early, launched a company that bought and sold…
Charles Paternostro was 14 when, in the mid-’50s, his father purchased an acre of land on a five-story cliff overlooking Lake Texoma and built a modest, three-bedroom home. The family lived in Dallas full-time but spent their weekends at the reservoir, boating and swimming and fishing. After his parents died,…
Gino Romano, alias Jonathan Lee Riches, alias Johnny Suenami, sued the Kardashian sisters, Kris Jenner, Lamar Odom and Mark Cuban in federal court. Why? Because they’re trying to kill him. Because he has a sex tape involving the Kardashians and Cuban. Because he witnessed it all from an air duct…
In early June, Governor Rick Perry was quick to announce that no state of his would be taking any of that tyrannical federal money to expand Medicaid coverage. Yet court documents filed by outgoing Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs claim that the state’s new, Planned Parenthood-free Women’s Health…
For four days last October, the Magnablend chemical plant along Highway 237 in Waxahachie burned. A flammable gas cloud had formed during the blending process and had been ignited by a spark of unknown origin. As the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality determined, “It appears that the incident could have…
Update on Aug. 10: Got an email response from Nalini Samuel, who works in Prabhakar’s office. Haven’t been served yet. Would love to comment- completely untrue- shakedown to get money. Ask her about her criminal record- Dr. Prabhakar is pro life. Original post: Christina Garcia began working as an $11-per-hour…
Update on Aug. 8: I spoke with Mayor Beth Van Doyne who told me, basically, that LVG doesn’t have much of a case. “The Las Colinas Group is in a corner,” she said. “The city has done everything they were obligated to do. It’s nothing but a smear campaign.” The…
What would 120 acres of pristine, undeveloped green space in the heart of booming Lakewood go for on the open market? Hard to know, but it’s a fair bet that it would be much, much more than $7.4 million the 100-year-old Lakewood Country Club is listed for on county tax…
A U.S. District Court judge in Galveston yesterday blocked five parts of Texas’ new voter registration laws, all of which were aimed at curtailing large voter registration drives. Voting for America and Project Vote, two affiliated national projects that hire canvassers to register new voters, had sued Galveston County Tax…
A federal judge ruled Thursday that Farmers Branch’s voting system is depriving the Latino population of representation on the City Council. City leaders have 60 days to address the violation of federal voting law. Farmers Branch’s ethnic history has been troubled over the last six years or so. The town…
A controversial Farmers Branch immigration ordinance will get a second chance in court after a sound rejection back in March, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Arizona’s controversial immigration bill will play a determining role. Farmers Branch has three times passed a “housing” ordinance which would require anyone renting…
You know Combat Zone Corp. as the illustrious production company that brought you such unforgettable cinematic experiences as Bareback Mount Him, These Feet Were Made For Fucking and Chow My Puntang” All of them are motion pictures of the first order, I assure you, but all is not well in…
Update at 4:24 p.m.: I still haven’t heard directly from TVA, but a press release from them just hit the wires. Mills’ claims are “ridiculous,” and she was fired for “ongoing inappropriate and abusive conduct toward her supervisor and fellow employees.” The full release is after the jump. Original post::…
Judging by a joint filing in a federal-court scuffle between Avalon Residential Care Homes and the City of Dallas, the end may be in sight. Dallas has for years struggled to strike a balance between regulating the city’s group homes without trampling their rights under federal housing laws. Safe to…
On a Saturday evening in late July, Beth Shapiro went for a bite at the Uptown Pub, a laid-back and unpretentious bar at the corner of Lemmon and McKinney avenues. She sat on the patio, where she spotted Cain, a large (140 pounds) friendly looking mastiff. As she petted the…
