The Ten-Percent Ring was a title given by the newspapper editors of The Tombstone Epitaph in 1881 to Johnny Behan and his friends for stealing about ten percent of the localTombstone, Arizona taxes in the 1880s. Milt Joyce, owner of the Oriental Saloon and chairman of Cochise County, Arizona supervisors was also seen as a leader of the Ten Percent Ring. The Tombstone Epitaph was started by John Clum in 1880. The newspaper outlined the corruption charges of Johnny Behan the Cochise Countysheriff. When Johnny Behan was the Cochise County sheriff one of his duties was collecting prostitution, gambling, liquor, and theater taxes. As part of his pay, he received 10% of all proceeds collected. There was much talk in the town about the graftpolitical corruption of the sheriff. For this many saw Behan as the head of the Ten Percent Ring and a friend of the outlaw Cochise County Cowboys. Others accused of membership in the ring was Artemus Fay, owner of the Tombstone's first newspaper, the Tombstone Weekly Nugget and Harry Wood a writer for the Weekly Nugget and an under-sheriff of Behan. Along with stealing tax funds, the Ten Percent Ring helped in election fraud and helping the outlaw Cochise County Cowboys. Behan so focused on taxes, that he was very soft on crime. Soon after Behan became sheriff, Virgil Earp was appointed Tombstone city marshal and had is brothers Wyatt Earp and Morgan Earp become special deputy policemen. Behan and the Earps were at conflict as Behan supported the outlaw Clanton and McLaury families. After the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and the murder of Morgan Earp, Behan did nothing to find the killers of Morgan Earp. Rather than look for Morgan killers, Behan put out warrants for U.S. marshal Virgil Earp and Wyatt for killing outlaws. On January 31, 1882, Behan was arrested for collecting bills totaling $300 twice, arraigned in front of Justice Stilwell, and discharged due to a technicality. Behan failed to win re-election as sheriff in November of 1882, he would not serve as a peace officer again. He later was appointed as the warden of the Yuma Territorial Prison and had various other government jobs until his death in 1912. Milt Joyce, departed Tombstone in 1883. On October 10, 1880 Joyce and Doc Holliday had a shoot out at the Oriental. Joyce died in 1889 at the age of 42 in San Francisco, he was the owner of the Baldwin Billiard Parlor in 1883 and later the Cafe Royal in San Francisco. Harry M Woods, a Pennsylvania Infantry Union Veteran, moved to from Tombstone to Nogales, Arizona where he was a tax collector till his death in 1896. After Artemus Fay departed the Weekly Nugget, which burned in the great fire of 1882 and didnot repoen, he worked at the Nugget Mine in Dos Cabezas and start a short-lived paper there, the Gold Note. After the death of his wife, Fay moved to Flagstaff and started a newspaper there.
