booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

On November 28, 1978, federal agents arrested newly re-elected Sheriff George
Janovich in the parking lot of a Tacoma supermarket. In all, 16 members of an alleged
extortion ring, “The Enterprise,” were handcuffed that day. The other big fish was John J.
Carbone. The feds said he was the boss of a Chicago-style gang that extracted protection
money from South Tacoma tavern and night club owners and bail bondsmen who offered
sex and gambling on the side. The recalcitrant had their places torched, some repeatedly,
and a state Liquor Control Board inspector was shot outside his home. When some
leading Tacomans had the audacity to suggest the fires were Carbone’s handiwork, he
had his goons torch his own house while he was on vacation. Not only could he collect
the insurance money, he’d look like a victim. Unfortunately, the boys proved to be inept
arsonists, Rick Anderson recalled in a Seattle Weekly column years later. They had tried to
burn down a tavern “by running around at night next to a busy street with flaming brooms,
jumping and stretching up to set the roof on fire. … They did get the fire going at the boss’s
house, all right,” but the investigators were no dummies. They looked in the closets and
found no remains of clothes or shoes. Walking from room to charred room, they concluded
that the good furniture had been removed before the blaze. The net was closed when the
sheriff was caught on tape accepting a $1,300 bribe from an undercover federal agent.
Janovich, Carbone and five others were convicted on 45 racketeering counts, six other
defendants having pleaded guilty. The disgraced sheriff got 12 years, Carbone twice that,
and the county ended up paying the liquor agent and two of the victimized tavern owners
a total of $3.7 million for deprivation of their civil rights.
Jolted by the scandal, Pierce County voters in late 1979 elected Larry Faulk and
22 others as “freeholders” to draft a new county charter. They met twice a week for six
months, with Faulk as one of the architects of a plan that called for a more businesslike,
taxpayer-accountable
approach to governance.
The voters approved, and
elections were set in early
1981 to choose a new
seven-member County
Council headed by a county
executive. The sheriff and
other department heads
were to become appointed
positions.
In December of 1980,
Booth’s hat was one of the
first in the ring for county
executive. So was Faulk’s.
Booth’s lead-off ad in the Tacoma News Tribune.
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