Is there anyone who takes at face value a claim from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that his office’s arrest of county Supervisor Don Stapley this morning has absolutely no connection to Friday’s dismissal of the remaining criminal counts against Stapley from a previous case? Of course, some people believe the original investigation and arrest of Stapley was spurred after Stapley publicly questioned Arpaio’s management of the sheriff’s office in the wake of the Tribune’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series, “Reasonable Doubt.” It’s part of the reason that Maricopa County government has become a feuding snake pit, with Stapley’s colleagues essentially siding with him and against Arpaio in various power struggles and lawsuits.
But a lot of people outside of county government were willing to give Arpaio a lot of leeway politically. Stapley has been a county supervisor for a long time, but he’s also a real estate developer who has close ties to a convicted felon. Perhaps the sheriff’s investigators really had found some wrongdoing on Stapley’s part, many people reasoned.
But to claim today’s arrest was a complete coincidence? I don’t think hardly anyone is going to believe Arpaio this time. This investigation has been underway since January, and supposedly was finished 12 days ago. But Arpaio’s office didn’t refer the case to County Attorney Andrew Thomas or another prosecutor to seek an indictment, which is the typical step for a complex and lengthy investigation targeting an elected official. No, Arpaio or one of his supervisors just randomly decided today was the day to rush out and arrest Stapley. Oh, sure.
The bad timing can only damage the state’s efforts to actually convict Stapley if the sheriff does have credible evidence of felony crimes. Certainly, any judge or jury is going at least wonder if the filing of another 100 criminal charges at this point is politically motivated.
Today’s arrest was the wrong legal move and it didn’t help Arpaio’s public image either. That seems rather odd for a sheriff who usually finesses the latter so well.
Sheriff’s Office: Stapley arrested in tax, campaign, business fraud
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Still wondering why the Sheriff didn’t provide a probable cause statement to the initial appearance court? Why didn’t the Sheriff go with the normal route in a complex case like this have the county attorney present the case to a grand jury. I would have to guess it’s a weak case to begin with, and the Sheriff decided it was time for payback. Should be interesting to see how Thomas handles this.
This is classic abuse of process and power. icecat is right, a case of this alleged magnitude would go to the state or county grand jury and be supervised by a prosecutor from beginning to end. Police agencies don’t just drop allegations of official corruption on the desk of a prosecutor and demand a prosecution. The Maricopa County Sheriff elected by the voters is out of control. Just because a law enforcement official is elected doesn’t mean he or she gets a pass on obeying the law. Governor Brewer needs to bring in the DPS to investigate the MCSO.
Joe is such a sore loser he has to do this, what a pathetic abuse of power by a crazy old man. Truly this is a new low for Joe. Think how much money they have (candy andy and Joke Arpiehole) have wasted suing the board or supervisors and Don Stapley. They have lost every case against the board collectively and individually. When are these pathetic losers going to just do their real jobs.
Yes, there’s probably not an adult residing in Maricopa County who didn’t see the timing of this action by the sheriff as compulsive and retaliatory. Worse yet, is that he made no contact beforehand with a prosecutor to review the results of this “newer” investigation….IF his goal was to get a conviction of Stapley. However, because he didn’t even have his act together in this regard and took everyone off guard by improperly arresting Stapley, it’s pretty obvious his focus and delight was on the BIG publicity splash to embarrass Stapley and to show Stapley and everyone who’s boss in his world of “Joe’s law.”
When the big publicity splash by Arpaio occurred a while back by performing a surprise raid on the Wolfswinkel business offices (”Ah hah, Stapley’s ties to a convicted felon”), wasn’t it brought out by both Stapley and Wolfswinkel that they’ve been friends since their days at Westwood High School together and have remained friendly since then — when Mesa was probably less than 1/5 the population it is now? It doesn’t erase Conley’s “convicted felon” status from his white collar crime, but since these two older men both still live in the East Valley, such a relationship is not all that unusual.
Ray accurately recounts how Don Stapley and Conley Wolfswinkel describe their relationship. Of course, the sheriff’s office (and the county attorney’s office for that matter) suspected something more nefarious from recent Stapley/Wolfswinkel business dealings. My point from my original post was that because Stapley has had those business dealings with Wolfswinkel, many people thought the sheriff’s investigation of Stapley could undercover some serious wrongdoing. But so far, nothing has been revealed. The new allegations made against Stapley appear to have no connection to Wolfswinkel, and the previous case deals with an alleged failure to properly disclose business dealings on government reporting forms.
There are a half-dozen old east valley families that have their fingers in the real estate development pie. The Wolfswinkle’s and Stapley’s are two of them. The other name are just as, if not more, prominent. Many of those family members have served the city, county and state for generations and are highly respected. Many grew up in Mesa and Chandler and business relationships and family friendships go back to the 30’s and 40’s. Sheriff Arpaio may have finally bitten off more than he can chew with this one. Stapley has the money and support to fight back. Arpaio isn’t messing with some drunk who is choked and beaten to death by jail guards and no one cares about. Before its all over Arpaio could be living in a trailer in Apache Junction telling stories to the homeless about who he used to be. No doubt if Stapley isn’t found guilty of a crime he’ll take everything Arpaio has.
Le,
That’s an excellent and accurate explanation of the matters at hand, and I DID understand the context in which you mentioned “convicted felon.” But it’s more than Arpaio and Thomas seeking a more nefarious connection between Wolfswinkel and Stapley with the search warrants served on Wolfswinkel offices.
I assume that if that were their only motive, to learn for themselves if there was something crooked going on, the public would have never been reading about that raid on the Wolfswinkel offices.
Law enforcement agencies generally don’t make it a habit to hold press conferences or send press releases every time they issue a search warrant. I believe in this instance, Arpaio wanted to shine his spotlight on the “guilt by association” aspect of Wolfswinkel’s and Stapley’s business dealings to deliberately convey a negative public perception of Stapley.
Contrast that mode of operation with, for example, the AG’s office.
Phoenix New Times just learned a couple weeks ago that since March the AG’s office has been quietly conducting an investigation into MCSO’s scandalous and covert SCA Fund which was spent for Arpaio’s re-election campaign last fall. PNT also learned that a search warrant had been served on Joel Fox’s home back in APRIL seeking applicable records and computer data pertaining to that fund. (Fox is the sheriff’s captain who was the overseeing front man for the fund.)
I am not in law enforcement, but that would seem to be the logical means in conducting investigations. Issuing press releases or purposely “leaking” information to the press at the beginning stages of an investigation can also wind up to be counter-productive for a law enforcement agency that is conducting the focused investigation.
That seems to be the major difference in the way Arpaio operates and the way all other law enforcement agencies operate.