Sheriff Joe's Real Estate Game

Otherwise, even one of your lamebrained posse members might think you're hiding something.

Repercussions continue in the wake of Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley's recent decision to dismiss charges against nearly 60 women arrested in Sheriff Joe's ludicrous undercover investigation in which deputies and posse men got naked and frisky with alleged hookers.

Contrary to the sheriff's office's vigorous assertions that it's common for undercover officers to strip down in the course of a vice investigation, I've stumbled across sworn testimony by the sheriff's top aide that suggests otherwise.

In March 2002, Chief Deputy Hendershott gave a deposition in a dismissal hearing for sheriff's Deputy Mark Guemes, who had the bad luck to be getting off-duty service (or was it servic-ing?) inside a massage parlor when it was raided by the Phoenix Police Department vice squad.

The sheriff's office wanted to fire Guemes for engaging in "unbecoming conduct" and lying to superiors about his encounter with a couple of gals inside an Ahwatukee apartment. Guemes paid $140 for a massage and testified that he was expecting to be masturbated before the cops entered the apartment.

While Guemes was in one bedroom, a Phoenix vice cop was in another. The woman dealing with the Phoenix officer became suspicious when he refused to drop a towel from around his midsection. He also had paid the woman $140, but she returned it when she suspected the bust was about to occur.

During the deposition, Guemes' attorney, Clarisse McCormick, asked Hendershott why a cop doing undercover work in a vice operation would not be able to remove a towel covering his genitals.

"As a matter of policy now, most agencies will not allow their officers to remove the towel," testified Hendershott, who worked as an undercover vice cop for eight years.

"Basically, because it would be inappropriate?" McCormick asked.

"I believe . . . there is a lack of community acceptance to that without the towel being there as a buffer zone," Hendershott replied.

Eighteen months later, Arpaio went ahead with his big prostitution sting. Romley's decision makes it clear that the "community," which Hendershott referenced, won't condone the slimy investigative tactics he and Arpaio dumbly employed.

E-mail john.dougherty@newtimes.com, or call 602-229-8445.