A rather disappointing ‘October Surprise’

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Frowny DuceyBack in early September, Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times wrote “Former GoDaddy exec Christine Jones, who spent more than $5 million on her vanity bid for Ninth Floor of the Capitol only to place third, has warned voters of an “October surprise” with a Ducey candidacy, and there are rumors about this swirling, which if proved true, will be catastrophic for state Republicans.” Sinners, Psychos, Skunks.

Lemons today has a “Special Report” with The Center for Investigative Reporting, which I assume is the “October Surprise.” This report acknowledges that it does not tie anything to Doug Ducey himself. It is a rather disappointing reveal as an “October Surprise.” Everyone has morally questionable relatives in their family. Special Report: Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate Doug Ducey Hails From an Infamous Ohio Organized-Crime Family (excerpt):

[T]he all-American image Ducey projects, one which helped him win the primary and may help him win the general election, belies a family tree that includes two generations of his mother’s family’s involvement in organized crime.

That said, New Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting discovered no evidence that Ducey ever profited from the activities of his involved maternal relatives — or that the GOP candidate engaged in any criminal activity.

According to newspaper accounts and public records from various court and congressional hearings, four of Ducey’s relatives in an Italian-American family called Scott (anglicized from Scotti) were involved in illegal gambling in Ohio.

Family members ran after-hours gambling clubs and participated in bookmaking, numbers-running, extortion, loan-sharking, and other lucrative illicit activities from the 1920s through the 1980s.

The candidate’s maternal grandfather, William Scott (a.k.a. Bill Scotti), was a convicted bookmaker who partnered with members of the Detroit mob.

His son Billy Scott, Ducey’s uncle, was a high-profile sports bookmaker in Toledo who did time in federal prison in Arizona before fleeing to the Caribbean island of Antigua, where he became an online gambling kingpin.

Uncle Billy returned to the United States in 2012 to plead guilty in federal court to international money laundering and illegal Internet wagering.

Ducey’s great uncle Tony Paul Scott (a.k.a. Neufio Scott), his grandfather’s brother, was among Toledo’s “most legendary racketeers” and one of the “elders of the loosely knit Toledo crime family,” according to the Toledo Blade, the city’s daily newspaper.

During his long life, Tony Paul was arrested numerous times, incarcerated for illegal gambling and highway robbery, and eventually stripped of his U.S. citizenship, though he was allowed to remain in this country until his death in 1993.

These sins of the state treasurer’s fascinating bloodline have remained unknown to the general public. Until now.

This is followed by a lengthy description of the exploits of  Ducey’s crime family in Toledo, Ohio which may be of interest, but does not appear particularly relevant.

As this story went to press, New Times and CIR still await a response from the Ducey campaign to the information uncovered showing that Ducey is the scion of a Toledo organized-crime family.

Ducey’s family, including his mother and her husband, have donated about $9,184 to his campaigns for governor and treasurer. Donors from Ohio have given about $55,000 to his political efforts.

But that’s dwarfed by the more than $3 million of Ducey’s own fortune that he’s committed to becoming governor and to the millions more spent by independent-expenditure committees and so-called “dark-money groups,” which do not disclose donors.

Some of these dark-money groups have ties to the Koch brothers. And it’s fair to say that they, through these groups, have more influence over the outcome of this year’s gubernatorial election than anyone from the Scott side of Ducey’s family.

Could Ducey be ignorant of the exploits of his relatives on his mother’s side?

This seems unlikely, given the extensive documentation of their exploits in the Toledo press.

The activities of Ducey’s Uncle Billy would have been, in particular, difficult to ignore, since members of Ducey’s family remain in contact with Scott, to judge from Facebook.

Ducey’s mom’s Facebook page notes a trip she and Ducey’s step-father made to the island of St. Maarten in 2011, one year before Scott’s pleading guilty to Internet gambling in a U.S. court.

One photo from the trip that she posted to Facebook shows Madeline Burk, a glass of wine in her hand, arm-in-arm on the beach with brother Billy, still a fugitive from American justice.

“Saying Goodbye to my brother,” she writes as a caption to the picture. “He and [his wife] Susan [are the] most incredible hosts ever!! Love & more.”

You can’t choose your family, goes the old saw, and that no doubt will be part of the Ducey camp’s spin on this story.

Conversely, those opposed to him may see a parallel to Ducey’s alliance with the Kochs or to his behavior as CEO of Cold Stone Creamery.

Some former Cold Stone store owners, for instance, have accused Ducey and Cold Stone of over-selling the company’s franchises and of other dubious business practices.

Moreover, the public still does not know the full details of the company’s sale to Kahala, which Ducey and other parties to the deal have kept under seal.

The secret of the misdeeds of Ducey’s relatives from the Scott side of his family has proved harder to keep.

When you promise me an “October Surprise,” you need more than this.

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34 thoughts on “A rather disappointing ‘October Surprise’”

  1. I never thought I would see the day when confirmed, close ties to organized crime and the mob of a gubernatorial candidate would be ignored and those that investigated, fact checked and exposed it would be demonized by the liberal elitists.

    Donna, you are so blind to your own white privilege that I am embarrassed for you. Its not the first time it has been observed either.

    If Raul Grajalva or Rubin Gallego or any latino seeking or holding office had a family member confirmed this close to the Cartel, it would be front page news and you would be running away from that candidate asap. (or trying and failing to discount the info as you are for Ducey).

    Chad Campbell would be calling for his resignation and demanding he get to carry a loaded gun inside the State Capitol to defend himself against the threat. (how fast you all forgot about that idiotic publicity stunt).

    You folks are really being naive on this. You claim to be against dark money while defending Ducey’s privacy. You can’t put dark money and organized crime together? You need someone to show you how that might work? Really?

    Blue,
    To write an entire article on Jone’s prediction of an October surprise, tie that to this investigative report and blame the writer is about as lame as straw man spins can get. Jeez. The last time I checked Christine Jones and Stephen Lemons aren’t the same people. I don’t know how you got the two of them confused.

    • Sorry, it’s still a stupid attack that will do nothing but backfire. Yes, it’s totally unfair that a Latino with cartel ties would be getting more flack for it but that doesn’t change anything where Ducey is concerned. No one gives a shit about his grandfather and great uncle being mobsters. No matter how much you guys yell and wave your hands around.

      • You forgot to mention his uncle who pleaded guilty to international money laundering. Uncle Billy’s probation ended earlier this year.

        Add in his 90 year old grandmother as well, she was arrested back in the day with the uncle and the great-uncle.

        “Sorry, it’s still a stupid attack that will do nothing but backfire. ”

        See, that’s what you do not get, Donna, and perhaps never will. I and the New Times do not exist to help your pals get elected.

        The piece is not an “attack,” it is a presentation of facts, and does shine some light on the guy’s character, considering that he has presented himself as the inheritor of Midwestern ethics, which he says he got from Gammy and Pa.

        You kvetch that it will not help your guy get elected. That it won’t “hurt” Ducey enough to make him lose the election. This is not my concern.

        In fact, if the shoe were on the other foot, I would expose DuVal in the same manner.

        When I first exposed that Tom Horne had hired his mistress as an Assistant Attorney General, some out there, including some Ds thought, “no biggie.”

        But some stories develop over time. I cannot always put into print what I know or have a hunch about. Such stories get lawyered for a reason.

        I suppose we could have waited, or not printed the piece at all. But I know that if we had not done the story, it’s likely another outlet would have found out about it, eventually, and would have done it. That’s the reality of the news business.

        So we went with what we had.

        You say it disappointed you and did not further your agenda?

        I really could not care less.

        • “See, that’s what you do not get, Donna, and perhaps never will. I and the New Times do not exist to help your pals get elected. ”

          No shit. You spend way more time trying to help Republicans. Why do you think Sean Noble went straight to you when he wanted to soften Brnovich’s image? You are a useful idiot.

          At any rate, could I please go back to being irrelevant to you? I was just fine not interacting with you at all these past few months.

          • The idiot is in your mirror, Donna. And the way I play is that if you fire, I fire back. No quarter given, and none taken. If you don’t like it, there’s an easy way to end it: go back to playing Tiddlywinks.

          • Something I don’t understand is why bloggers on this site believe The New Times and the The Arizona Republic favor the conservative right. I read them both and I can tell you, without hesitation, they are both leftist newspapers. The Republic has one editorial writer that is conservative and the rest are completely liberal, including the editorial cartoonist. I don’t know of any conservatives that work for the New Times.

            For a while I used to go through and count the news articles and determine if they were conservative / nuetral / liberal in nature. Quite consistently it was 5-6 to 1, liberal to conservative, with about 1-2 nuetral. It was that way week after week.

            That is why I don’t understand the consensus on this site that they favor Republicans.

      • The only people running around waving their hands is you and a few others Donna. Facts are facts. The report has them. Your defense of calling Jerry Lewis a “tea party puppet” was wrong, dishonest. It didn’t help him lose, it only hurt the democrats credibility. Hell, you still can’t even offer any evidence on that whopper. Ducey talks about his close family ties as a staple of his campaign, now we know lots more about those ties. You just have personal issues with Lemons and it blinds you from critical thinking.

  4. I think this is pretty important stuff. I would like to see the Democrats spend a large amount of money on TV and radio ads spreading the word. This is the sort of revelation that could mean the difference for DuVal.

  6. Who flipping cares! Rates right up there with not giving a rat’s ass about Fred Duval’s driving without paying the $20 fee! There’s enough real live nasty stuff this idiot Koch whore does that’s worthy of talking about. This is just stupid, petty junk. Enough of this petty bs. Talk about the issues that matter the most. This isn’t one.

  7. Also, I’m fairly certain all this stuff came out in DuVal’s oppo research on Ducey. Why do you suppose they haven’t used it?

      • Yeah, I remember this writer for the Phoenix New Times spending the better part of 2012 relentlessly pushing the election of Jerry Lewis for State Senate in LD26 and angrily denouncing critics of that effort. Said writer even invented a “profile in political courage” award specially for Lewis. It was a smashing success!

        Oh wait, Ed Ableser won that election. By 12 points. Speaking of irrelevant…

          • You used to be respected, but then a few years ago you started making yourself part of your stories. And now you’re angrily trolling Blog for Arizona.

            Get a grip.

        • Donna, I am so glad you brought up Lewis. What I remember is you defending an absolute lie of a mailer democrats put out. Instead of taking on Lewis on progressive issues, Ableser choose to lie and you supported the lie wholeheartedly. I am probably more liberal than you (definitely when it comes to border issues and defending peoples right to work and support their families- a basic human rights concern). Yes, Ableser won by 10%. Thats proof he didn’t need to lie about Lewis. Still want to compare the two? You can’t even find a Lewis family member involved with the tea party. Yet you defend Ducey? Lewis is way too conservative for my vote but too honest for politics. He gladly served a valuable purpose that no Dem could accomplish and the Dem party wouldn’t even support Pearce’s recall. With the help of Lewis and none from you we got rid of Pearce, a man who supports sterilization of poor women so SHAME ON YOU. Lewis is as much a puppet of the tea party as you are the pro-life movement. The tea party hated him more than anyone in this state yet you defended an absolute lie of an ad and for what? And here you are still defending it years later without one lick of evidence to support it. You’ve lost all credibility Donna.

    • And what is your proof Donna? I can find it suspicious that Chad Campbell jumped to Duceys defense and wonder if he may have some skeletons that he doesn’t want exposed but I can’t be certain. You denounce important info yet throw out crap you have no inside knowledge of. Yes, you have lost all credibility.

  8. Actually I thinks it’s worse than irrelevant. It’s stupid on many levels for Dems to push this.

    If this were Fred DuVal’s family and the GOP were attacking him in a similar way we’d all be up in arms about it. Ducey had no choice in who his family was and there’s no evidence tying him to any mob activity. Also, are there people who are really so out of the American pop culture loop that they really don’t know that people LOVE the Mafia? Not great people in reality but beloved icons in entertainment. This attack does nothing but help Ducey.

    Plus, you don’t get to be outraged at the attacks on Barack Obama’s family history and “questions” about his birth and parents and call this a legitimate issue with Ducey.

    • “Plus, you don’t get to be outraged at the attacks on Barack Obama’s family history and “questions” about his birth and parents and call this a legitimate issue with Ducey.”

      WOW. You out-did yourself on that one Donna. Even Ducey’s own family members have had to concede the info in the article is true. The birther thing was a racist ploy with no facts or evidence promoting fear of blacks and muslims, one again proving you are not in touch with your own white privilege or you wouldn’t have made the comparison.

  9. You’re making the incorrect assumption that this story is what I was talking about then. It is not.

    This is one reason why Democrats are such losers in this state. The whining gets a little old.

    I can only imagine the field day that would have ensued if DuVal had similar family connections. More proof that the “Blue Meanies” of AZ would be better described as “Blue Wussies.”

    • I don’t quite understand you, Stephen. You are a professional writer (a dream job for many people), you write for a major newspaper (an even greater dream job) and you write in a major market (Phoenix is no slouch of a metropolitan area) but you seem so sensitive to criticism. I am certain you know that when you write something you will always have proponents and critics.

      I am a troll on this site and I occasionally attacked, but I just let the comments roll off my back. I found that drives them crazy. Responding to them in kind feeds into their egos, especially AZBlueMeanie’s. You are a professional, so why do you allow the critics to bother you so much?

  10. You’re making the incorrect assumption that this story is what I was talking about then. It is not.

    This is one reason why Democrats are such losers in this state. The whining gets a little old.

    I can only imagine the field day that would have ensued if DuVal had similar family connections. Another reason the “Blue Meanies” are, generally though not always, wussies.

  11. You’re making the incorrect assumption that this story is what I was talking about then. It is not.

    This is one reason why Democrats are such losers in this state. The whining gets a little old.

    I can only imagine the field day that would have ensued if DuVal had similar family connections. Another reason the “Blue Meanies” are, generally though not always, pussies.

  12. What’s interesting is the unanswered questions.1. When did Doug’s mother and father divorce? Records show his mother married Ducey when Doug was 11 years old.2. Did he go to school in Toledo under the name of Roscoe? What about ASU records?3. When and how did he become Ducey?4. If he was adopted why is the biological father still in the picture?5. If he decided to take the name of stepfather was it done legally and when?

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