Mark Allen's Ex-Wife Accused of Murder

Anchorage--

If you have extra time over the Thanksgiving holiday, you might want to check out this racy tale in the Seattle Weekly about how the former wife of Mark Allen--Bill Allen's son--is facing a murder charge in Washington state.  

The story contains details of Mark Allen's life after his horse  won the 2009 Kentucky Derby.   A former 50 to 1 longshot, Mine That Bird now has its own website and is "the subject of a new series of graphic novels for kids and a soon-to-be animated movie."  

The article--dated November 16--does get at least one detail wrong about Bill Allen, the former CEO of the now-defunct multinational oil-services giant VECO.   The piece says that Bill Allen "still faces prison time, but hasn't been sentenced."    In fact, Bill Allen was scheduled to be released yesterday following a period in custody that included time in federal prison and a stay in a halfway house in his home state of New Mexico.      

This Seattle Weekly piece joins other media coverage in giving you a feeling that Mark Allen has lived a more, um, colorful life than most.   He met his ex-wife--variously described in the article as "leggy" and "formerly drop-dead-gorgeous"--in 2006.   This was the same year his father became a federal informant and apparently began negotiating a plea agreement that spared Mark from facing prosecution for bribery, and the year before the sale of VECO apparently netted Mark Allen $30 million.   Mark Allen met his wife when she chauffeured him in a limousine in Las Vegas she started driving after competing as Miss Washington in a beauty contest held in that gambling metropolis.    

Happy Thanksgiving.   As another holiday gift for you, I'll repeat what I told a reporter this morning.   The odds are higher that it will hit 85 degrees in Alaska tomorrow than there will be any prosecutions of the prosecutors for any acts committed in the investigations of the "POLAR PEN" public corruption scandals.   Despite today's editorial in the Anchorage Daily News calling for either for a prosecution of Bill Allen for child abuse charges or an explanation of his non-prosecution, the multimillionaire former tycoon and powerbroker will not be charged for any crimes involving underaged girls that allegedly occurred before August 30, 2006, the day he started cooperating with the federal government in its probe of Alaska public corruption.