Archive Search Results
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Feature
Con Heir
Meet a truly dangerous prisoner. Literate. Political. Published. His teacher: the Birdman of Alcatraz.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: July 10, 1997
James Carey is in the hole again. He moves slowly into the visitors' room, hands cuffed and tethered to his waist, his stride reduced to a shuffle by the shackles around his...
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Feature
Singing Like a Canary: The Birdman's Caged Book
By Alan Prendergast
Published: July 10, 1997
Charles Dudley Martin was just starting his law career when he came across the Thomas Gaddis book Birdman of Alcatraz. The Springfield, Missouri, attorney was so impressed by...
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News
Safely Behind Bars
Prison life didn't suit prominent inmate activist Fidel Ramos, but parole was even worse.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: July 3, 1997
Twenty years ago, Fidel Ramos found the living conditions in Canon City's "Old Max" penitentiary so appalling that he sued the state, charging that the Department of...
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Feature
Story Time
How the bizarre child-abuse investigation of a school counselor became a crusade against troublesome parents -- courtesy of the Colorado Education Association.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: June 12, 1997
The town of Laporte sits on the edge of the Roosevelt National Forest, its back turned to the interstate a few miles away, and that's how it should be. Fewer than ten miles...
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News
Give Till It Hurts
Through the valley of debt with Pastor Charles E. Blair.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: June 5, 1997
You've got to hand it to Charles E. Blair. Thousands of people did, to their everlasting regret. This Sunday, June 8, Blair will celebrate fifty years as the pastor and...
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Feature
Carving a Niche
From body bags to gang shootings, artist Bill Potts has seen the horror--and held on to the dream.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: May 22, 1997
Bill Potts gets along with just about everybody. Still, there was a woman at an art show in Boulder who managed to curl his lip. A sculptor who carves vivid, exaggerated...
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News
Liar, Liar
A top DEA informant makes cases--and $200,000 a year--while breaking a few laws himself.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: May 8, 1997
In the fall of 1995, Kenneth Allen Coleman made the mistake of his life. Flush with cash from an insurance settlement, the 28-year-old parolee got mixed up with a flashy dope...
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News
A Hard Line on the High Line
Denver's plans for a popular trail are paved with good intentions--and concrete.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: April 24, 1997
Like a lot of residents of southeast Denver, Judy LaMar has come to embrace the High Line Canal trail as a refuge from the urban madness. Joggers and strollers, horseback...
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Feature
The Hundred Years War: A Century of Red Ink and Bad Press
By Alan Prendergast
Published: April 10, 1997
1895--Local curio magnate Harry Tammen and Kansas scoundrel Frederick Bonfils buy the fledgling Denver Evening Post for $12,500 and start shaping it into a lurid, red-headline...
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Feature
All the News That Fits
What gets lost in the heat of Denver's newspaper battle.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: April 10, 1997
From the moment he flew into town early last year, Dennis Britton noticed something strange about Denver's daily newspapers. A former editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, soon...
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News
Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been...?
A party leader's "affiliation" comes under fire in the state GOP chairman's race.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: March 20, 1997
Sam Zakhem has this to say about Steve Curtis: "I don't think he knows the truth when he stumbles over it." And Steve Curtis has this to say about Sam Zakhem: "He called me...
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News
The Pen Is Mightier Than the Pen
Prison censors' motto: What you don't know can't hurt us.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: March 20, 1997
What's prison life without Prison Life? Imagine a full-service broker without his Wall Street Journal, a Park Avenue publishing executive without her New Yorker, a...
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News
It's the Rail Thing
For some Lakewood homeowners, RTD's proposed light-rail line looms too close for comfort.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: March 13, 1997
Saving already broken ground on an expansion of Denver's light-rail line south to Littleton, the Regional Transportation District now has its sights set on another ten-mile...
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Feature
Nightmare on the Net
A web of intrigue surrounds the high-stakes legal brawl between FACTnet and the Church of Scientology.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: March 6, 1997
Strange things happen around Lawrence Wollersheim. His businesses collapse. His Boulder apartment gets raided by federal marshals, his computers seized. When college...
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News
Thanks a Lot, PAL
Other summer-league organizers cry foul over the city's new park-permit policy toward the Police Athletic League.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: February 13, 1997
For 28 years, Denver's Police Athletic League has honed the athletic skills of inner-city youth and taught them the value of competition and fair play. But when it comes to...
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News
Caught Off Guard
Sex harassment in the state prison system is no joke. So why is this man laughing?
By Alan Prendergast
Published: February 6, 1997
From the look of things, everybody had a grand time at the farewell party held last March at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility for departing deputy warden Joe Paolino....
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News
How to Impress the Ladies: A Prison Guard's Guide
By Alan Prendergast
Published: February 6, 1997
According to former corrections officer Sandra Haberman, the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility at Ordway was a hotbed of innuendo, threats and crude come-ons directed at...
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News
Moving Violation
A local mover and shirker hauls a load to bankruptcy court--for the sixth time.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: January 30, 1997
When civil rights activist Judith Lee Berg had an opportunity to work in Atlanta three years ago, she didn't think twice about renting out her Denver home and making a...
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Feature
Party Crasher
Back from the abyss, Sam Zakhem campaigns for the forgotten man: himself
By Alan Prendergast
Published: January 16, 1997
Sam Zakhem casts a hungry eye on the milling bodies in the halls of the State Capitol. The press conference room is filling up nicely, but the crowd is mostly made up of...
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Feature
Please Release Me
Colorado faces a boom in parolees--and rising evidence that parole isn't working.
By Alan Prendergast
Published: January 9, 1997
Three days a week, the blue bus from Canon City pulls up at the corner of Smith Road and Peoria and discharges a stream of men dressed in cheap polyester suits. The men are...
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