See the comment section at the site: they're after Sheriff Joe

'New Times' executives intend to sue Maricopa County over arrest
Michael Kiefer
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 21, 2008 12:00 AM

Two Phoenix New Times executives arrested last October after publishing the contents of a grand-jury subpoena have served legal notice that they intend to sue Maricopa County over the incident.

Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, heads of Village Voice Media, which owns New Times and several other newspapers, named Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Dennis Wilenchik, the special prosecutor assigned to the case, in their notice of claim, which is a precursor to a lawsuit.

The reputed crime is a misdemeanor, and Thomas, Wilenchik and Arpaio all denied personally ordering the heavy-handed arrests, which stirred much public outrage.





An embarrassed Thomas dropped all charges the next day and fired Wilenchik from the case.

But the notice of claim accuses the three defendants of violating Lacey's and Larkin's constitutional rights, with malicious prosecution, racketeering and conspiracy, and it offers to settle the case for $15 million.

The New Times executives and their attorneys declined to comment Wednesday, saying that the notice of claim was self-explanatory.

Barnett Lotstein, a spokesman for the County Attorney's Office, said, "This is a frivolous claim by a tabloid whose editors admitted they violated the law and a publicity-seeking lawyer in an attempt to keep an old story alive. We are confident that it will be exposed as the bunk it is."

Sheriff's Deputy Chief Jack Mac- Intyre called the notice "pretty much hyperbole and histrionics."

"The notice-of-claim statute says you have to provide facts so that the agency can evaluate the basis for the claim, and instead we get 18 pages of pretty much dramatic interpretation," MacIntyre said.

The document, authored by Arpaio's longtime legal antagonist, Mike Manning, is a colorful narrative, calling Lacey's and Larkin's arrests, "one of the most nakedly oppressive, conscious-shocking (sic) assaults on free press by police and prosecutors in U.S. history."

Manning has tried and won several lawsuits on behalf of families of inmates who have died or been injured in Maricopa County jails.

The document begins, "On the night of October 18, 2007, unmarked, dark vehicles (at least one with Mexico license plates) arrived at the homes of Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, Executive Editor and Chief Executive Officer, respectively, of Village Voice Media, LLC, owners of the Phoenix New Times. Both men were handcuffed and taken to jail by members of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's elite 'Selective Enforcement Unit' - based on a petty misdemeanor charge - for publishing a column in their newspaper earlier in the day entitled 'Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution.' This letter puts the masterminds of the those late-night raids on notice of the consequences of their actions."

Then the notice chronicles the dispute. In 2004, New Times published a series of articles critical of Arpaio and in one of them violated an obscure law by publishing Arpaio's address online.

Thomas appointed private attorney Wilenchik as special prosecutor, and Wilenchik issued a subpoena demanding not only documents related to the reporting and publishing of several articles, but also information about New Times' Web site readers. Lacey and Larkin published a story about the subpoena and the case against their writers, and they were arrested the night the story came out.

Manning's narrative also describes several other investigations that the Sheriff's Office made against Arpaio rivals, purportedly to show a pattern of behavior by that office.

According to the notice of claim, if a suit is filed, it will allege:


• Violations of constitutional rights, including false imprisonment and freedom of expression.


• Malicious prosecution, abuse of process and intentional interference with business expectancy under state law.


• Racketeering under federal law, based on a pattern of past behavior on the part of the Sheriff's Office.


• Conspiracy under state and federal law.

The notice asks for punitive damages between $10 million and $90 million, an amount equal to fines that Wilenchik had asked be imposed against the paper for publishing the subpoena information.

However, the claim states that the county can settle for $15 million if it acts by April 19.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... s0221.html