Word: fraud
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Besides Bolles, twelve persons associated with some of the land fraud scandals have died over the past six years, all before they could testify. Five died in two separate plane crashes, one drove off a cliff, another succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning in his automobile. Three suffered fatal heart attacks and another died of cancer. One was gunned down 24 hours before he was to testify in a grand jury investigation...
...rough stuff. Bolles, an Easterner hired by the Arizona Republic, sensed that organized crime flourished in collusion with public officials. In 1965 he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for detailing bribery within the Arizona State Tax and Corporation Commissions. Two years later, he exposed a gigantic land fraud scheme involving Western Growth Capital Corp. Later stories resulted in the prosecution of Ned Warren Sr., a major figure in that corporation and an ex-con. In 1975, Warren escaped prosecution in a land fraud case after the chief prosecution witness was slain...
...what he came to regard as windmill tilting and asked to be taken off the crime beat. But he could not stay away. When Adamson, a disreputable greyhound breeder and former tow truck operator, telephoned him three weeks ago with information purporting to link top Arizona Republicans to land fraud schemes, Bolles rushed off to meet him at a Phoenix hotel. While he waited, someone apparently placed the explosive charge in his car, parked in the hotel lot. Adamson failed to appear, and Bolles soon after stepped into his white 1976 four-door Datsun−and the trap that...
Broad Front. According to newsmen Bolles talked to after receiving Adamson's call, Adamson told Bolles that he could link Senator Barry Goldwater and Representative Sam Steiger to land fraud schemes. But there is no credible evidence involving either. Authorities believe that the names were used only as bait to entice Bolles. Of considerable interest to investigators is the role of Neal Roberts, a Phoenix attorney and an associate of both Adamson and Ned Warren, the so-called "Godfather" of Arizona land fraud schemes. Roberts quickly stepped forth with an alibi for Adamson, claiming that the two were together...
...including the Governor, the attorney general, 80 legislators and top business and community leaders signaled their outrage by crowding into the Church of the Beatitudes of the United Church of Christ for Bolles' funeral services. Observed one high-ranking Arizona official: "You cannot have the sort of systematic fraud and swindling that we have without the complicity of some top business and political figures...