Next time you roll into a gentleman’s establishment, ask yourself one question: Is this place in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938? That’s the law that established a national minimum wage and overtime pay. But the women who dance in topless and nudie joints don’t make minimum…
A hearing this morning at the Earle Cabell could have been a First Amendment showdown over Occupy Dallas’s right to remain in Pioneer Park in downtown. Instead, it became a simple formality after protesters came to a late-night agreement to move to a plot of city-owned land at Akard and…
For Dallas-based EPA investigator Keith Phillips, the visits to a Louisiana oil refinery started in the late ’90s, and came, it seems, with dual purposes: business and pleasure. It started as an investigation into the refinery’s waste storage methods and refinery manager Hubert Vidrine, who was eventually prosecuted. But court…
On the night of September 18, as heavy thunderstorms blew through Dallas, neighbors on West Woodin in Oak Cliff heard a “heavy, muffled boom,” they told a CBS 11 crew. A small apartment behind a house — little more than a converted, detached garage just a stone’s throw from R.L…
On August 15, 40-year-old John Burnette of Boyd climbed his way up to a three-sided, illuminated billboard he was supposed to service. The billboard, on a lot off of Division Street, is part of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium complex — No. 14, one of the Cowboys Silver Lots. Burnette opened…
While we await official confirmation from the Dallas Independent School District concerning a well-respected higher-up who was let go yesterday, there’s this. As expected, the Austin-based nonprofit The Equity Center (“founded in 1982 by 55 school districts as a response to the gross inequities that existed in the state’s school…
An interesting case, originally filed a few weeks ago in Dallas County District Court, showed up at the federal courthouse yesterday: Victory Park UST Joint Venture I, L.P., v RED Development, LLC, which involves “the development of certain commercial property located near the American Airlines Center.” The plaintiffs are the…
Did high-powered, Lubbock personal injury attorney Kevin Glasheen do diddly-squat for the wrongfully imprisoned Steven Phillips, aside from filling out a one-page form with the State Comptroller? Or is Phillips an ungrateful client who stiffed his attorney on a $2 million legal bill, filed for $4 million in compensation through…
In case you forgot: Faced with a walloping $131-million budget shortfall one year ago, Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm asked police officers and firefighters to take a 2 percent cut in pay. As part of that agreement, known as meet and confer, city officials rewrote the Special Events Ordinance to…
Waxahachie Daily Light! You’re on notice. Because when you get crossways with local firebrand Linda Lewis, protesters will march, media will descend, and comically high settlement demands will be made. Kentucky Fried Chicken got a taste back in 2006. Lewis claimed she found baby cockroaches sprinkled over her chicken sandwich…
This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a very confusing ruling in the case involving Dallas County’s voting machines — a case, you’ll recall, that stemmed from Linda Harper-Brown’s 19-vote victory over Democrat Bob Romano in 1998. Long story short: The Texas Democratic Party (represented in part by attorney…
On Monday we told you the story of Jason Clay Kennedy and the Brothers O’Brien, who, on February 5, disabled a Houston jewelry store’s alarm and video surveillance system and sawed through six inches of steel and concrete and made off with $6 million in 22-carat gold, Rolex watches and…
Friends of Unfair Park who followed the federal City Hall corruption trial in 2009 may recall the name Sarah Saldaña; she was among the more prominent prosecutors on that team. But till I glanced at her U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary questionnaire, I had no idea, for instance, that…
Today’s The Big Day (well, all right, a big day) for Dallas County Constables Ben Adamcik, Beth Villareal and Roy Williams and many of the deputy constables who say Dallas County is eliminating their jobs because some of them blew the whistle on Dallas County Precinct 1 Constable Derick Evans…
This afternoon at the Frank Crowley courts building, Anthony Robinson, a chief investigator at the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, announced that 17 people have been indicted for allegedly taking part in a retail theft ring that stole an estimated $400,000 in goods. Police have arrested 14 people and expect…
When last we checked in on the nearly 8-year-old (!) case involving those Plano ISD students (and their parents, more to the point) suing the district over those “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” pencils and candy canes they weren’t allowed to distribute during winter-break parties, one of the…
You knew this was coming; you were warned.While searching the Dallas County Civil District Court’s website for something unrelated, I took a look at the virtual case jacket concerning the lawsuit over the citywide sale of beer and wine — a suit brought by attorneys Andy Siegel and Leland de…
On June 30, as I’m almost positive you’ll recall, FBI agents raided the offices of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price; his executive assistant, Dapheny Fain; and Kathy Nealy, the well-connected political consultant. What you may have missed: Nineteen days before the raid, Center Operating Company, which owns and operates…
Back in August, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said he was taking a long, hard look at Mortgage Electronic Registration System, which, as we noted at the time, was created in 1995 by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other financial institutions to speed up the recording and transfer of…
The First Unitarian Church of Dallas hosted a special guest last week: Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. The CRR, if you recall, is the New York-based organization that recently won a preliminary injunction against Texas’s proposed sonogram law. In the church’s main sanctuary, Northup spoke to…
A curious tale involving Highland Park Middle School, two UT Southwestern docs, a 362-page novel and a whole bunch of underage kids allegedly depicted as doing things they shouldn’t oughta just hit Courthouse News. Read it for yourself. Long story short: The mother of an unnamed HPMS student (identified only…
Perhaps you recall: On the night of December 22, 2009, American Airlines Flight 331 crash-landed in Kingston, Jamaica. The Boeing 737-800, inbound from Miami during a storm, overshot the runaway and came within feet of sinking in the Caribbean. The feds told Channel 8 that “the plane may have been…
