For nearly a decade, Joseph Diego Ramirez, 37, has ranked as one of the softest touches in Princeton, Minn. (est. pop. 3,200). He contributed a reported $10,000 to landscape city hall with new lawns and tropical palms, leased two Volkswagen Rabbits to the police force for $1 a year, lent a local group $500,000, interest free, to help build a hockey arena, and spent another half a million dollars to lengthen the runway of the municipal airport. Then, in a sharp turn of events, Ramirez presented himself two weeks ago at the nearby St. Paul jail in response to...
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