A former state lawmaker and Pima County justice of the peace has been indicted for making a false tax return and telling the Internal Revenue Service that luxury sports cars he bought were business expenses for his bus company.

A state hearing officer recommends the Arizona Corporation Commission seize control of Johnson Utilities from the current management, at least temporarily, and install its own manager.

Indicted water utility owner George Johnson is now being investigated by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for allegedly threatening the Florence town manager, Brent Billingsley.

Jim Norton said on the witness stand Tuesday he did not force his now ex-wife, Kelly Norton, to hire Sherry Pierce at her firm, but that he urged her to do so because he had a stake in their success.

Kelly Norton was back on the stand in the “Ghost Lobby” trial Tuesday, this time under cross examination by a defense team intent on distorting her credibility in the eyes of the jury.

The government’s star witness in the “Ghost Lobby” trial, Kelly Norton, took the stand on Wednesday, visibly nervous at the head of a crowded courtroom hanging on her testimony.

The bribery trial of former Arizona Corporation Commissioner Gary Pierce and his wife Sherry Pierce is a clash of political paradigms.

Plea deals offered to a former state utility regulator and a lobbyist suggests that federal prosecutors are not done looking at other possible criminal activities at the Arizona Corporation Commission.

A lobbyist is asking a judge to delete several allegations in an indictment that accuses him of serving as a middle man in a scheme to bribe an Arizona utility regulator on behalf of a water company owner.

Pinal County residents long frustrated with utility owner George Johnson are piggybacking on criminal charges against him and others in a civil suit filed Monday.