Bill Morlin

A Spokane mortgage company owner and a real estate agent were convicted Wednesday by a U.S. District Court jury of conspiring to defraud young and vulnerable home buyers and lenders in an extensive fraud scheme. Dale D. "Sage" Gibbons, co-owner of the defunct Century Mortgage, and Sally L. Gibson, a Spokane Realtor who worked with him, were convicted of conspiracy and multiple counts of wire fraud.

COEUR d'ALENE – Summertime business and tourist activities ground to a halt here Saturday when a band of 40 neo-Nazis and Aryan Nations members spent an hour marching down a main street, waving racist flags and banners and exchanging insults with anti-racist demonstrators. "Are you going to reimburse the city for what this costs?" protester Emery Shaw, 54, shouted at Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler, who rode along the parade route in a lawn chair in the bed of an old Ford pickup.

Three white supremacy groups, tied to a religion called Christian Identity, will host gatherings this weekend at two locations in North Idaho and a third site near St. Regis, Mont. The most visible group, the Aryan Nations, will hold its annual Aryan World Congress at a private campground near Cataldo, Idaho, beginning today and lasting through Sunday.

A federal judge is scheduled to rule today whether to suppress the confession of a firefighter accused of starting a $2.6 million seed company warehouse fire last summer in the southeastern Spokane County town of Fairfield. The confession of Kenneth Southwell, repeated at least four times before federal agents, should be suppressed and not allowed as prosecution evidence at his trial, now set for July 26, Assistant Federal Defender Kim Deater argued at a hearing Wednesday.

Like a dueling dragster, the man who operates Spokane Raceway Park is squaring off with disgruntled investors who say they haven't seen any return on $2.5 million in stock they bought 30 years ago. Orville Moe, a crusty, gun-toting 67-year-old millionaire, says that the power struggle is being inflamed by estranged family members and that he's done nothing illegal. But the Spokane business legend could face state and federal investigations, and he has been named in at least two lawsuits, including one brought by the Kalispel Indian Tribe.

A former University of West Florida criminal justice professor will spend six months in federal prison for helping a Washington State University student flee to Canada just before he faced trial in Whitman County for three counts of vehicular homicide. Bernadette F. Olson, who earned her doctorate in criminal justice at WSU, is now a felon after pleading guilty to a charge that she lied to federal investigators, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Whaley was told Wednesday before he handed down the sentence.

COEUR D'ALENE – The Aryan Nations lost a chance to get a new 10-acre compound when one of its followers died, 10 days after drafting a will that leaves his Kootenai County property and other assets to his neighbor, who is a member of the sheriff's posse. Arthur Eber Sherman, a highly decorated World War II bomber pilot and longtime confidant of Aryan founder Richard G. Butler, apparently was more concerned about the care of his dog, Buster, when he drafted his will May 24.

A federal judge will conduct a bail review hearing Monday for a schoolteacher who has been in jail for 16 months, awaiting trial on federal espionage charges. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Whaley raised the issue of releasing Deborah Cummings from custody at a hearing Wednesday in Spokane.

Maggie Nicolino designs Starbucks coffee houses, but her real love is found in the barn. His name is Pauli – a 13-year-old Hanoverian warm blood who arrived in the United States from Germany last August with a $70,000 price tag.