Arizona State Treasurer, Cold Stone Creamery CEO, gubernatorial candidate and human ventriloquist dummy, Doug Ducey (R. AZ), has tried to personify himself as this all American good ol' boy. But a new report sheds some light on Ducey's family background:
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/...
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.
Both public records and Ducey's family's digital footprint have been helpful in understanding the candidate's relation to a world that sometimes resembles Once Upon a Time in America or The Sopranos, depending on the generation involved.
A 1963 marriage certificate from Ohio's Lucas County, of which Toledo is the county seat, records that at age 19, Madeline Scott, Ducey's mother and the daughter of William and Madeline Scott, wed Douglas Roscoe, who refers to Ducey on Facebook as the "next AZ Governor, my son Doug Ducey."
It's one of several of Roscoe's Facebook references to Ducey and other members of Ducey's family.
According to this, Roscoe is Ducey's cop father, and he identifies himself online as having formerly been with the Toledo Police Department.
Contacted by The Center for Investigative Reporting for this story, the TPD confirmed that Doug Roscoe served as an officer there for about 12 years, from October 1965 to April 1977.
Ironically, during that period, Ducey's grandfather, grandmother, and uncle --Roscoe's in-laws -- were under investigation by various law enforcement agencies.
On Ducey's campaign website, the candidate states that he "visits his dad in Toledo every year around Father's Day." - Phoenix New Times, 10/14/14
The whole story is worth a read. Pretty revealing stuff there. It shouldn't be that surprising given Ducey's shady business practices as CEO of Cold Stone Creamery:
http://online.wsj.com/...
Even as they rave about the quality of the ice cream, numerous franchisees say the numbers in Cold Stone's business model didn't add up. The cost of running one of the shops was so steep that making a profit was daunting, especially in an economy where a $4 scoop was a pricey indulgence, they argue. They also contend the company cut their margins even further by offering two-for-one coupons and making them buy costly ingredients from a single supplier. Some argue that the company's rapid expansion crowded stores too close together -- and brought in too many inexperienced franchisees.
A number of franchisees also contend the company misled them, giving them promises of profit potential that proved unrealistic or inaccurate revenue numbers from existing stores. And some say that they got little help from the company as their stores went under.
"They have a defective business model, there's no question about it," says Ken Gornall, a former franchisee who closed his Glendale, Ariz., store last October. He adds that the average revenue numbers he received before signing up "were quite misleading," exaggerating likely annual sales.
Cold Stone says more than 100 of its stores closed last year. That's up from 60 in 2006. One list on a Cold Stone Web site recently had 303 stores for sale -- more than 20% of the company's 1,384 as of last December.
This "combination of numbers is very, very high," says franchise attorney Eric Karp of Boston law firm Witmer, Karp, Warner & Ryan LLP. "I think it's a symptom of bad news and not good news." (Mr. Karp, who specializes in representing franchisee associations and individual franchisees, hasn't represented Cold Stone store owners.)
Cold Stone has been franchising only since 1995, and Mr. Karp concludes that 12 years or so would be an unusually short time for first-generation franchisees to be cashing out and retiring. - Wall Street Journal, 6/12/08
Ducey served as CEO and principal of the Scottsdale-based ice cream franchise business between 1996 to 2007. Not to mention Ducey is someone who is more than happy to take the Koch Brothers money:
http://www.thenation.com/...
Secret tapes of a June summit of wealthy donors organized by the Kochs reveal that top Republican gubernatorial prospects—including Nebraska’s Pete Ricketts and Arizona’s Doug Ducey—appeared before the group, as did Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a cavalcade of Senate candidates that included Iowan Joni Ernst, Arkansas Congressman Tom Cotton and Colorado Congressman Cory Gardner. All were solicitous. But few were so blunt as Ducey, a wealthy former business executive who thanked the Kochs directly while declaring, “I have been coming to this conference for years. It’s been very inspirational.”
Ducey did not stop there.
On the tape that was obtained by The Undercurrent and shared exclusively with The Nation, he made it clear that he is all about the Walker: “So uh, in this business, you’re known by the company you keep, and uh, we’re proud that we’re off to a fast start. Uh, we’re proud that Governor Scott Walker from Wisconsin has come out and endorsed our campaign.”
Interestingly, Walker endorsed two candidates in seriously contested Republican primaries for governorships this year; both of them appeared at the Koch brothers session in June: Arizona’s Ducey and Nebraska’s Ricketts. Like Ducey, Ricketts raves about Walker and has hailed the Wisconsin governor as “a true leader in the Republican Party” because he “stood up to the big government union bosses.” - The Nation, 10/2/14
And now that he's running for Governor, Ducey is trying to pivot from his extremism he campaigned on during the crowded GOP primary:
http://www.azcentral.com/...
At the fifth and final gubernatorial debate Tuesday, Republican Doug Ducey appeared to distance himself from his campaign pledge to eventually eliminate the state's income tax.
The state treasurer and former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery has campaigned for months on reducing and ultimately eliminating the personal and corporate income taxes — the source of nearly half the $9 billion that flows into state coffers each year.
Ducey's income-tax elimination proposal, however, has become increasingly problematic for him as the state's financial picture dims. The anticipated budget deficit this fiscal year is $520 million, and $1 billion next fiscal year.
In addition, economists have said the proposal is unrealistic because it assumes the economy will grow fast enough to replace that tax revenue, which they say is unlikely.
Ducey faces Democratic nominee Fred DuVal, a former Clinton administration staffer, lobbyist, gubernatorial adviser and Board of Regents chairman, in the Nov. 4 general election. The pair met at the Camelback Inn Resort & Spa in Paradise Valley for the debate, hosted by two women's groups. - AZ Central, 10/14/14
Fred DuVal (D. AZ) has a great shot at beating Ducey. Click here to donate and get involved with his campaign:
http://www.fred2014.com/