Sheriff Joe Arpaio is at it again

E-mail: so this morning (yesterday) sheriff joke had the fucking county supervisor arrested! sheriff joke is out of fucking control!

From AZ Central:
As Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley waited Monday for a Superior Court judge to dismiss felony charges against him, he found himself arrested and taken to court again, to face new charges on a variety of financial crimes.

County sheriff's deputies arrested Stapley as he arrived at work at the county administration building Monday morning. A court clerk soon read the 100 charges. Stapley pleaded not guilty.

The new charges are serious: theft and fraud related to campaign fundraising, based on a months-long examination of Stapley's finances.
But Stapley's defense attorney called the timing suspicious.

On Friday, the special prosecutor in another case against Stapley filed a motion to dismiss the charges levied against the supervisor in November, pending a review from an appellate court.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the arrest three days later was coincidence.

The arrest caught Stapley and county prosecutors off-guard. Complex white-collar cases typically are charged with the cooperation of a prosecutor, who often obtains an indictment before making an arrest.

Arpaio said his office had acted on its own, investigating independently and arresting Stapley because it had probable cause. He and his investigators said the two cases are not related, though some of the allegations arose out of the sheriff's initial investigation into Stapley. "Completely a separate case," Arpaio said.

Stapley's attorney, Paul Charlton, disagreed.

"They're abusing the whole criminal-justice system because the timing here is more than suspicious," Charlton said. "This is nothing more than a vindictive act by the sheriff; and, as I said in court, it's one that's better fitted with a Third World dictatorship than it was for this democracy."

A prosecutor will have to decide whether to pursue the case, then seek an indictment before Stapley's preliminary hearing Oct. 9, which could be a difficult task given the case's complexity.

The most serious of the new charges are theft and fraud. Both are linked to Stapley's campaigns for leadership positions in the National Association of Counties, which stretched from September 2004 through October 2008.

According to the sheriff's charging documents, Stapley collected money for his campaign after he had already won the position and used campaign donations on personal expenses.

The theft allegation and suspected victims linked to those crimes are what prompted Stapley's arrest on Monday, sheriff's Deputy Chief Terry Young said. "In this case, you have people: Victims are out money specifically as a result of his conduct," Young said.

Arpaio said detectives began investigating the most recent allegations in January and completed the investigation Sept. 11. Top investigators in the Sheriff's Office reviewed the case last week.

Arpaio said he made the decision to make an arrest late in the week, but Stapley was out of town.

On Monday morning, sheriff's deputies followed Stapley from his home in Mesa to a downtown Phoenix parking garage, where they made the arrest. Deputies did not arrest Stapley at his home "out of courtesy," Arpaio said.

Mel Bowers, special prosecutor in the earlier Stapley case, said he knew nothing of the charges.

The earlier case touched off a storm of controversy, centered on whether County Attorney Andrew Thomas had a conflict of interest, representing the county in legal matters while prosecuting one of its elected officials.

Thomas later removed himself from the case. He sent Stapley's case to Yavapai County and has promised that his office would similarly hand off any future cases that involve county supervisors.

Spokesmen from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office said they, too, were unaware of the new case. The deputy county attorney on duty during the initial appearance Monday refused to appear in the Stapley matter.

"You almost always work with a prosecutor at the very front end of the process because the legal issues are very, very complex," former County Attorney Rick Romley said. "The thoroughness of the investigation is absolutely critical. It could not only complicate, it could also jeopardize a successful prosecution."

During Stapley's appearance on Monday, Jack MacIntyre, a chief deputy with the Sheriff's Office, entered the hearing room. Superior Court Commissioner Jerry Bernstein briefly interrupted the hearing to ask MacIntyre if he would be comfortable taking questions about the new charges against Stapley. "Your Honor, I don't know any more than anybody else in the courtroom," MacIntyre said.

While Stapley is free on his own recognizance, the state has until Oct. 9 to bring the case before a grand jury to obtain an indictment or else the state will have to appear before a judge on that date to determine if there is cause for the case to go forward.

The charges also could be refiled at a later date.

Stapley's finances have been under Arpaio's scrutiny for more than a year.

The supervisor was indicted in November on 118 criminal counts regarding omissions in his financial-disclosure forms. One count was dropped in the spring.

By late summer, 52 counts had been eliminated when it was discovered that the county Board of Supervisors had never properly implemented financial-disclosure rules. Bowers has appealed.

But because the remaining felony counts of perjury, forgery and false swearing stem from the omissions on the financial-disclosure forms - in essence, the dismissed counts - Bowers felt the case was at risk.

SPURS FAN says: John Wayne is at it again, huh? I have an idea. Whoever votes for this asshole the next time around should be charged with a felony. No trial, no plea, just have the people line up in front of a firing squad.

Thanks J for sending this. Also, Joe is as useless as Chief Wiggums, hence the picture. Kind of looks like him too.