Judge mulls arguments to pull Thomas from case
36 comments
by Michael Kiefer - Feb. 17, 2010 12:00 AM

The hearing was to disqualify Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas from prosecuting a criminal case against county Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox.

Two prosecutors took the stand.


Thomas defended his ongoing criminal and civil actions against county officials.

And Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk explained why she refused to go along with some of the same actions.

In a 5 1/2-hour marathon in Superior Court on Tuesday, Thomas sparred contentiously with Wilcox's defense attorney, Colin Campbell.

And Polk, who prosecuted the first criminal case against Supervisor Don Stapley, recounted how she had refused to help Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his chief deputy, David Hendershott, also investigate Wilcox, based on what she thought was insufficient evidence.

To avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, Thomas had asked Polk to handle the Stapley prosecution and any subsequent cases involving county officials. But he later took back the files, and his office is now prosecuting both county supervisors.

On Tuesday, he said he would prefer to have an independent prosecutor.

"That was my preference at the time," he said. "It still is, for the record. But it didn't turn out that way."

The hearing offered plenty of sharp barbs as well as insight into the details of the county battle and the strong personalities involved in it.

Campbell, a former Superior Court presiding judge, badgered Thomas over his criminal and civil legal actions against other county officials. He zeroed in on a federal racketeering suit alleging conspiracy that Thomas filed against the supervisors, other county officials, judges and attorneys.

That suit, Campbell said, "makes (former President Richard) Nixon look like he's not paranoid."

Campbell said Thomas should not be prosecuting people he has sued.

Campbell also sought Polk's testimony to demonstrate what he called an abuse of due process.

Pima County Superior Court Judge John Leonardo, appointed to hear the Wilcox and Stapley cases, tried Tuesday to keep all parties on point. He called on Campbell to curb his remarks and told Thomas to stop speechifying. He balanced objections from both sides. Ultimately, he took the matter under advisement.

Wilcox faces two overlapping indictments, one for 36 counts and one for 42 counts of perjury, conflict of interest and false swearing that stem from allegations that she voted to grant funds to advocacy group Chicanos Por La Causa while contracting for business loans from one of the group's subsidiaries. Stapley faces 22 felony counts related to suspected misuse of campaign funds. Both maintain their innocence.

Polk worked with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office through an earlier criminal case against Stapley, which was dismissed on technicalities. Her working relationship with the Sheriff's Office deteriorated, she said, because she refused to issue grand-jury subpoenas at Hendershott's request - to "go fishing" for possible crimes that may have been committed by Wilcox.

"There is no crime here," she said she told sheriff's investigators. "Even if you prove what you want to prove, that behavior is not going to be a crime."

On the stand Tuesday, Polk drew distinctions between the Wilcox and Stapley cases.

She felt the Stapley cases had merit, but she was surprised when Stapley was arrested in September, just days after his first criminal case was dropped.

She described in detail a September meeting with Arpaio, Hendershott, Thomas and staffers from all their offices.

"I was shocked because, the previous Friday, I had told Sheriff Arpaio and Chief Hendershott that the case was not ready to file," she said.

She said Arpaio told her, "It was his job to arrest and my job to prosecute."

Over the next few hours, she and Thomas danced around whether she would keep the cases or return them. In October, she was taken off the cases. Thomas then tried to appoint special prosecutors from Washington, D.C., but the county supervisors would not let him.

In December, she wrote a letter to The Arizona Republic accusing Thomas and Arpaio of running roughshod over the legal system.

"I came to the realization that by maintaining silence, I was paving the way for greater and greater abuses," she testified.

When Thomas was on the witness stand, Campbell was aggressive, questioning Thomas' credentials as a lawyer and forcing him to answer with a simple "yes" or "no" when Thomas wanted to give detailed answers.

Thomas repeatedly asked, "May I explain?" Campbell repeatedly responded, "No."

When cross-examined by one of his own staffers, Thomas said he has been stymied by the county in trying to get an independent prosecutor to try the cases.

"We were not able to prosecute these people," he said. "We were being obstructed at every step along the way."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/ ... izona.html