Dial “M” for MalfeasanceSomebody stole a reporter’s phone records. A former FBI deputy says it wasn’t him.
OLIVER “BUCK” REVELL, 64, OF Rowlett, is a man who would know how to steal phone records if he wanted to. In 30 years with the FBI, he rose to second in command and led the Bureau’s antiterrorism and counter-intelligence efforts. Also, Lyndon LaRouche once called him “the most dangerous man in America” (for whatever that’s worth).
So when financial journalist Christopher Byron—who had recently written an article critical of a company chaired by Revell—learned that someone had stolen his phone records, and when Byron found circumstantial evidence pointing to Revell, or, rather, pointing to the area of North Texas where Revell lives, Byron called the cops. Fittingly enough, the FBI is now investigating.
It all began last August, with Byron’s monthly column for the technology magazine Red Herring. Byron is one of the most widely read—and feared—business writers in the country, and he raised tough questions about the stability of a small Vancouver firm called Imagis Technologies, which Revell chairs. Imagis makes facial-recognition software used by law-enforcement agencies, and its stock price soared after the terrorist attacks. But Byron noted that some of its original investors are well-known characters in the wildly speculative Vancouver stock market. He also ridiculed Imagis’ recent capital-raising forays. Imagis sued Byron and Red Herring for libel in Canada.
The real trouble started in October, when Byron got a call at his Connecticut home from someone claiming to be an AT&T representative. The caller asked Byron for the password to his Internet account, which sounded suspicious, so Byron hung up and called AT&T himself. No, AT&T told him, they hadn’t called. But their computers were full of password inquires supposedly from Byron and his wife. He was shocked.
Byron says that after “getting nasty” with AT&T, they told him someone had spent 10 weeks trying to steal his phone records and that someone had finally succeeded. On October 15, an employee of an AT&T contractor in Irving read Christopher Byron’s phone records to an interloper. The person asked for every long-distance call Byron made in July, the month he was reporting the Imagis story. Ninety-six calls. When they were placed. How long they lasted. Who was called. It took more than an hour to read them all. According to Byron, AT&T told him that only three calls it received that day fit the profile of the bogus request. Two originated from Texas. One came from Alba, a wide spot in the road about 60 miles due east of Rowlett. AT&T officials would not verify this, citing the ongoing FBI investigation.
Byron says he has suspicions that the Imagis people were behind the theft. “I would be astounded and astonished if Buck Revell got in the car and drove out to Alba, Texas, and stopped at a 7-Eleven and called [AT&T],” Byron says. “But I also don’t have any doubt that somebody did do that.”
Revell, who owns a Dallas security company called Revell Group International, says it was “asinine” for AT&T to release the records. He also says he doesn’t know where Alba is, and, anyway, he wouldn’t ruin his reputation by stooping to such tricks. “I’ve got 40 years of service to my country in law enforcement,” Revell says. “I’m not about to go out and do something like that. Nor would I allow anyone to do anything.”
Photo by Dallas Morning News
$1.6 million, Imagis’ third-quarter loss. At press time, its stock was trading for $1.18, down from $3.50 in March.
How to Pay Homage to an Ex-Girlfriend: Design a Beer Ad
PERHAPS YOU’VE SEEN THIS AD FOR Miller Lite. Over the past few months, it has run as a full page in GQ, Esquire, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and other national magazines. Here are three wildly interesting tidbits that will facilitate your appreciation of it:
1. The ad was created by a Dallas illustrator named Arthur James. James is 34 and goes by the nom de doodle Artman. He says he’s been getting calls from friends who’ve spotted it in unusual places. “A guy called me the other day from a bathroom in a bar,” James says. “He said, ’Dude, I’m peeing on your ad!’”
2. The ad initially worried executives at Miller Brewing. As James says, he had to “fight the Joe Camel stigma.” The Miller folks were afraid they’d be accused of using cartoonish images to appeal to minors. That’s why beer ads generally come in two categories: shots of dewy bottles and shots of dewy models. But James’ ad tested well in focus groups, so they went with it. This month, Miller execs and their ad firm will decide whether the magazine ad will graduate to poster status.
3. The bartender in the ad is an ex-girlfriend of James’. If you look closely at the white fringe at the bottom of her skirt, you can make out her name. The girl, as of press time, is a cocktail waitress at the Men’s Club, but don’t let that affect your opinion of James. “That’s not where I met her,” James points out. “That happened long after I went out with her.” —T.R.
Imagis’ third-quarter loss.
Book ’em
You can’t judge a book by its cover. But, if you’re extremely talented and highly trained, you can judge a book by its first sentence. That’s what we’ve done with the following tomes, all just out from writers with local ties.
Fashion Victim
By Chloe Green (Kensington Books)
LOWDOWN: Green works in the fashion industry and teaches at SMU. Victim is a murder mystery with Dallas O’Connor, professional stylist and amateur sleuth.
FIRST SENTENCE: “The wind howled around the palace walls as I hurried through the courtyard garden toward the safety of the kitchen.”
REVIEW: A hackneyed melodrama in desperate need of commas to set off its prepositional phrases. Sure to be a bestseller. C-
Acquisition of Power
By Erika Barr (PublishAmerica)
LOWDOWN: Barr lives in Plano.
Power is a thriller set in the world of international business. And it features “sexcapades.”
FIRST SENTENCE: “’Greed is good.’”
REVIEW: A tightly written tale that borrows unabashedly from the 1987 Oliver Stone movie Wall Street. C
The Tentmaker
By Clay Reynolds (Berkley Books)
LOWDOWN: Reynolds teaches at UTD. Tentmaker is a historical Western about a, um, tentmaker.
FIRST SENTENCE: “Jefferson O’Halloran Tay, known as ’Ol’ Jeff’ to his friends, of which he had none, sat casually on top of a huge brindle stallion—a horse he had stolen because its size and color caught his eye—with one fat leg looped over the saddle horn.”
REVIEW: A dense narrative that bravely refuses to make the obvious joke about tents and pitching them. B+
The Contortionist’s Handbook
By Craig Clevenger (MacAdam/Cage)
LOWDOWN: Clevenger was born in Dallas. Handbook, his first novel, is about a deformed math genius who suffers migraines.
FIRST SENTENCE: “I can count my overdoses on one hand.”
REVIEW: A gritty, in-your-face story that bravely refuses to make the obvious joke about “overdosing with your hand.” A
Understatement of the Month
“His co-workers were very surprised.”
—Fort Worth cop TROY LAWRENCE on pastor James Smith, who was giving a PowerPoint presentation at work when he accidentally showed colleagues a picture of a nude boy on his computer. (Smith was found to have quite a collection of child porn and was arrested.)
The List
Tom Spence
Carolyn Pool
David Voss
Mary Ann Gabler
Steve Van
Linda Paulk
Patricia Villareal
Pamela McManus
Burt Tansky
Phil Henderson
Jennifer Nagorka
Pamela Dealey
Bettina Hennessy
Elias Assaly
Susan Eldridge
Sayuri Beltran
Brad Goldberg
Kathleen Mason
Sanli Ekin Ozlen
Lamar Norsworthy
Kim Quirk
Sharon Wright
Emy Lou Baldridge
Bill Sechrest
George Laughlin
Robert Trammell
Claude Denham
Question & Answer
MIKE NORRIS is the son of Chuck Norris—though a casual fan of the Norris family’s oeuvre could almost mistake Mike for Chuck’s brother. Mike’s supernatural thriller, The Bells of Innocence, is showing in local theaters before it goes to video this month. He lives in Flower Mound.
D Magazine: When was the last time you told your brother that you love him?
Woman on Top
IF CHRISTINE LAKIN LOOKS FAMILIAR, IT’S probably not because you caught the Dallas native’s appearances in Touched By an Angel and Boston Public. You also likely did not see her turn in the provocatively titled (though harmless) movie Buck Naked Arson. You know her because you watched her grow up on the sitcom Step By Step. She played Alicia, the tomboy daughter of Suzanne Somers and Patrick Duffy. But now the 24-year-old has a problem. “I don’t like kissing on camera,” she says. “It’s bad enough to be caught kissing by your parents. But when you have a whole crew watching you, it’s a little weird.” Her latest film, out this spring, is called Who’s Your Daddy?, and she does have a kissing scene in it. No word yet from Suzanne Somers or Patrick Duffy on how their little girl did. —Kristie Ramirez
Photo Courtesy of Christine Lakin
The Monopolist
Authorities investigate how the Dallas Observer’s parent company does business.
A SHADY DEAL BETWEEN PUBLISHERS OF alternative newsweeklies in Cleveland and Los Angeles might affect the way you get your sex ads here in Dallas.
In October, Phoenix-based New Times Media, parent company of the Dallas Observer, agreed to shutter its 6-year-old New Times Los Angeles for more than $8 million, leaving the competing L.A. Weekly as the only alternative paper in town. The Weekly is owned by New York-based Village Voice Media, which shut down one of its papers, the Cleveland Free Times, for far less cash, leaving New Times’ Cleveland Scene as the only alternative paper there. In essence, New Times got Cleveland and Village Voice got LA.
If the agreement sounds to you like a harmless quid pro quo, then you’re not an antitrust lawyer. Such arrangements, especially if they involve cash transactions, are illegal under the Sherman Act. Now federal, state, and local prosecutors are looking into the matter.
The investigation has grown beyond the LA-Cleveland deal. Published reports have the U.S. Department of Justice examining how New Times does business in other cities where it owns papers, including San Francisco and Nashville. Next up could be Dallas, where the Observer has an interesting relationship with the Fort Worth Weekly.
New Times bought the FW Weekly in 2000. A year later, in an odd transaction, the company sold it for an undisclosed amount to Lee Newquist, who, only days earlier, had been New Times’ executive vice president of operations and publisher of both the Observer and FW Weekly. (New Times also bought and closed the competing Met in 2000.)
When asked if authorities had contacted him about the investigation, Newquist had no comment. Current Observer publisher Alison Draper referred all questions to New Times CEO Jim Larkin, who didn’t return phone calls. Department of Justice investigators didn’t return calls, either. And DA Bill Hill’s office would neither confirm nor deny any investigation. —Adam McGill
A PULSE Editorial:
We’ve Had It Up to Our Tuchis With the Mavericks Mascots
Screw Champ and the horse he rode in on. Some may argue that the Mavs’ newest mascot, with his plush, baby-blue fur, inspires the home team. They may insist his threatening, angular features intimidate all ye who enter the American Airlines Center. But those people are so wrong it hurts our teeth.
Even Champ knows he’s completely useless—an unwanted, unwarranted piece of marketing overkill. At press time, the Mavs were undefeated and playing the best basketball in the NBA. Are you not entertained? Do you really need more? All the courtside hullabaloo is more than distracting—it’s insulting.
The Mavs Dancers, it goes without saying, are a vital part of the team, the community, and America. The Mavs Man is creepy, but according to the team’s web site, he “inspires and motivates kids to shoot for success in life by being accountable for doing their best in all aspects of their lives.” The ManiAACs were funny once. (Fat men! Dancing!) And the Funslingers make friends one free t-shirt at a time. We will allow it.
But Champ? It must stop here. Be gone, you blue-haired, four-fingered, sneaker-wearing nag. And take that Cowboys’ buffoon, Rowdy, with you. —A.M.
DALLAS: FAT AND CONGESTED
What better time of year than our annual Best & Worst issue to celebrate the middle? We can’t be the best (or worst) at everything. In some cases, that’s good (and bad).
| Dallas Ranks | In the Category | According To | The Winner |
| 17th | Asthma “Hot Spots” | Fast Forward Inc. | Tuscon, AZ |
| 6th | Worst City for Traffic Congestion | Texas Transportation Institute | Los Angeles |
| 13th | Most Sprawling City | Smart Growth America | Riverside- San Bernardino, CA |
| 8th | Best Sports City | The Sporting News | Boston |
| 14th | Best Place to Do Business and Advance Your Career | Forbes | San Diego |
| 19th | Most Dangerous City | Morgan Quitno | Detroit |
| 7th | Knowledge Economy | Robert Huggins Associates | Minneapolis-St. Paul |
| 24th | Most Naturally Heathy City | Natural Health | Miami |
| 5th | Fattest City | Men’s Fintness | Houston |
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