Bill Morlin

A defense attorney called a reporter for The Spokesman-Review to testify Monday in the trial of Spokane businessman Arlin Jordin, who is accused of rape and indecent liberties. Jordin may testify in his own defense, possibly as early as this afternoon, his attorney Bevan Maxey said at the end of testimony Monday.

Two witnesses told a Spokane jury Thursday they had sex against their will in 1998, as prosecutors attempted to show that Spokane businessman Arlin Jordin was involved for years in a scheme of giving drug-laced drinks to women. The 59-year-old landlord is on trial in Superior Court, accused of second-degree rape and indecent liberties stemming from a November 2004 incident involving a woman who is now 36.

Two witnesses told a Spokane jury Thursday they had sex against their will in 1998, as prosecutors attempted to show that Spokane businessman Arlin Jordin was involved for years in a scheme of giving drug-laced drinks to women. The 59-year-old landlord is on trial in Superior Court, accused of second-degree rape and indecent liberties stemming from a November 2004 incident involving a woman who is now 36.

A Spokane drug dealer who rejected a plea bargain for only a few years in prison was sent away Tuesday to spend the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary, without the possibility of parole. Raul S. Zavala got the harsh sentence because under federal drug laws he was deemed a "career offender" whose two previous drug-dealing convictions were factors in his mandatory sentence.

The Spokane Police Department is withholding public records requested by The Spokesman-Review because acting Police Chief Jim Nicks is angry with the newspaper's recent coverage of two high-profile cases. The records were assembled and scheduled to be released this week in compliance with a state Open Records Act request submitted by reporter Karen Dorn Steele. But she was informed Thursday by Police Department spokesman Tom Lee that the records wouldn't be released.

A Spokane firefighter who resigned last month after having on-duty sex with a 16-year-old girl previously sent pictures of himself engaged in sex acts with other women over the Internet while at work, according to city records ordered released Wednesday. Daniel W. Ross faced five counts of "conduct unbecoming an officer" and two additional counts of violating city policy by using the city's computer network to access or transmit obscene, profane or pornographic material. The 35-year-old firefighter resigned his $63,769-a-year job on March 8, one day before a hearing into his conduct at Fire Station No. 17 on Feb. 10.

Street and drag racing at Spokane Raceway Park will open this weekend under a temporary agreement reached Wednesday after an emergency court hearing was postponed. Court-appointed receiver Barry Davidson wanted Superior Court Judge Robert Austin to bar longtime operator Orville Moe from the track, permanently close the facility and put it up for sale to compensate limited-partner investors.

The fire that destroyed the $11 million Kennedy Apartment complex at Gonzaga University was "intentionally set," but Fire Chief Bobby Williams said Wednesday investigators have no suspects. The arson was reported at 12:05 a.m. March 13, but it may have burned for an hour or more before then, Williams said.

Investigators are expected to announce soon that arson likely was the cause of the $11 million fire that destroyed the nearly completed Kennedy Apartment complex on the Gonzaga University campus earlier this month. Their preliminary findings largely will be based on videotapes that appear to show fire initially burning in at least two locations in the unoccupied complex.

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna and Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker said a decision whether to prosecute former Spokane Mayor Jim West on state charges for misconduct in office is still in limbo. It now appears unlikely that any state criminal charges will ever be filed against West, recalled by 65 percent of the voters three months ago.

The operators of Spokane-based diploma mills used an Arizona man to pay three top-ranking Liberian diplomats more than $43,000 in a series of cash bribes, according to court documents filed Monday. Richard John Novak admitted in U.S. District Court in Spokane that he paid the bribes to senior Liberian diplomats in Washington, D.C., Liberia and Ghana, with the money coming from the Spokane bank accounts of Dixie and Stephen Randock of Colbert, Wash.

Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession said Wednesday he will consider a request for an "external investigation" of the relationship between a private ambulance company and the Spokane Fire Department administration. Hession responded a day after Spokane Firefighters Local 29 called for an outside investigation, triggered by American Medical Response's public admission to overbilling Spokane patients $320,689 in the last two years.

A Spokane-based diploma mill operation raked in $4.7 million in fraudulent sales before a federal task force made eight arrests late last year, newly filed court documents say. The documents outline a plea bargain by Blake Alan Carlson, the owner of a Hillyard stamp shop, who became "Professor Blackwell" and "Chief Provost" as part of the conspiracy that sold bogus online college degrees and accompanying fake transcripts around the world.

Some Spokane women are reacting with outrage at the city's handling of the sexual encounter in a firehouse between a 16-year-old girl and a 35-year-old firefighter. The anger intensified this week when top officials at the Spokane Police Department said they didn't arrest firefighter Daniel W. Ross because the sex was consensual, and detectives allowed pictures of the girl to be destroyed after Ross told them he thought she was 18 since the two had met on an adults-only Web site.

A Spokane firefighter who photographed and engaged in sex with a 16-year-old girl at a city firehouse thought she was over 18 after the two had met on an adults-only Internet site, the city's acting police chief and a senior detective supervisor said Monday. Firefighter Daniel W. Ross and the girl also exchanged telephone text messages for about four months before "casually agreeing" to their first rendezvous Feb. 10 at Fire Station No. 17 in northwest Spokane, Chief Jim Nicks and Lt. Scott Stephens said in an interview with The Spokesman-Review.

A Spokane firefighter who took explicit pictures of a 16-year-old girl during a firehouse sex fling apparently violated state law by possessing those images, which later were deleted from a digital camera by a police detective. Washington law makes it a felony to possess pictures showing anyone under 18 involved in "sexually explicit conduct."

The Spokane County prosecutor's office is reviewing a graphic video forwarded by a national animal rights organization showing 10 hogs being killed during a bullet-testing demonstration. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an advocacy group known as PETA, claims the video, now on the organization's Web site, shows "cruel treatment of 10 pigs, resulting in the pain, suffering and deaths of the animals, in complete disregard of Washington law, for the sole purpose of commercial gain."