bluedog
"Leader of Kings"
By DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR. and CAREN PENLAND
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITERS
PHIPPSA former Tarrant County businessman accused of defrauding investors of about $21 million in an elaborate Ponzi scheme is running as an independent candidate for governor of Alabama.
According to a campaign finance report, James Ray Phipps, 58, said he had spent $50,000 of his own money to kick off the campaign in January.
Phipps, who was arrested in Alabama this week, has run afoul of the law before, according to Tarrant County criminal court records. He was convicted of animal cruelty and sentenced to a year in jail in 1999 for attacking a neighbor's dog with a steel shovel. During the attack, the animal was chained to a tree in the neighbor's front yard in North Richland Hills. Phipps was also sentenced to 25 days in jail in 2001 for evading arrest in Tarrant County.