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Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution

Continued from page 4

Published on October 18, 2007

To underscore just how far the sheriff had perverted the law, Dougherty included Arpaio's home address, which he had learned from the other Internet sites, at the end of the second item of his column.

  • Giulio Sciorio
    The initial grand jury subpoena named New Times Media LLC.; that's us, Michael Lacey (right) and Jim Larkin. We founded Phoenix New Times in 1970 in reaction to the war in Vietnam; our newspaper company has since expanded across America. The two of us live here, our kids go to school here, and we begin every day confronting the issues of journalism here. In nearly 40 years of work, this is our first joint byline. (You see, grand juries have their positive side.)
    The initial grand jury subpoena named New Times Media LLC.; that's us, Michael Lacey (right) and Jim Larkin. We founded Phoenix New Times in 1970 in reaction to the war in Vietnam; our newspaper company has since expanded across America. The two of us live here, our kids go to school here, and we begin every day confronting the issues of journalism here. In nearly 40 years of work, this is our first joint byline. (You see, grand juries have their positive side.)
  • The most outrageous part of the over-the-top New Times subpoena is this section demanding the identities of our Web site readers, plus their Internet viewing habits. See full text of the subpoena here.
    The most outrageous part of the over-the-top New Times subpoena is this section demanding the identities of our Web site readers, plus their Internet viewing habits. See full text of the subpoena here.

Subject(s):

First Amendment, Maricopa County, Dennis Wilenchik
There is another fascinating aspect to all this. There is a second arcane Arizona law that put us at odds with Sheriff Arpaio.

That law says you cannot publish a law enforcement officer's address on the World Wide Web. Yet it is perfectly legal to publish an officer's home address in your newspaper, or on a billboard. You can broadcast that address on radio or television.

Like every other news organization we are aware of, the content of our newspaper goes up on our Web site automatically. Now almost three years after the fact, this criminal law, a Class 5 felony, provided a tool for special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik to serve our organization with a total of three grand jury subpoenas.

Because we've been no less critical of County Attorney Andrew Thomas' policies than we have of Sheriff Arpaio's, the top prosecutor declared a conflict of interest and initially shipped out the alleged Class 5 felony to Pinal County, where it languished for nearly two years before it was punted back to Maricopa County.

At one point, prosecutors in Pinal County agreed that perhaps the best solution was for New Times to file a Constitutional challenge to the Web site statute.

Then the cockamamie card was played.

A Mexican drug cartel acting on behalf of the Minutemen through the intercession of a pro-immigration rights radio talk show host intended to assassinate Arpaio, according to a sheriff's office investigation detailed on the front page of the Sunday, October 7, edition of the Arizona Republic.

Now just think about this for a second. The Minutemen hate Mexicans sneaking across the border. They are even less fond if the Mexicans are smuggling drugs.

And we are supposed to believe that the Minutemen, seldom associated with unexplained stashes of bling, agreed to a $3 million assassination fee and put 50 percent down?

And that this was brokered by Elias Bermudez, a talk radio host, former mayor of Mexican border town San Luis Rio Colorado in Sonora, and an outspoken critic of Sheriff Arpaio — and, obviously, no fan of the Minutemen?

And a key linchpin in this comic book farce was a teenage girl in a prep school in Hartford, Connecticut, who was an exchange student at one point in San Luis. If the drug cartel needed to contact the Minutemen "for any reason," they could use a particular e-mail address . . . which, as the officers discovered, belonged to a kid in a private school.

Sheriff's deputies combed the poor child's computer, as well as her prep school. Nothing.

Did we mention that the genesis of this fantasy was a confidential source from the border who failed the pivotal polygraph question about whether he was telling the truth about a plot to off Sheriff Arpaio?

The thread to all this was that the Minutemen wanted to stir up hostility to immigrants for shooting Arpaio. It was never clear how this was going to be blamed upon mojados, but that was hardly the most glaring question.

Or as Chris Simcox told the morning newspaper, "Look, Joe Arpaio is like a hero to us as Minutemen. Why would we want to go against the toughest sheriff in the country?"

When quizzed by the Republic, Chief Larry Black — in charge of the unit that works threat assessment and evaluates the wave of fist-shaking directed at Arpaio — admitted that not a single, factual lead from the confidential source checked out.

"No, it didn't," Black told the newspaper. "And it was killing us."

No doubt.

Just like it was killing Arpaio's threat-assessment boys in 2003 when prosecutors took hapless James Saville to trial for "plotting" to kill Arpaio. Jurors wound up deciding that deputies set up the assassin, coaxing and entrapping him. Saville was acquitted ("The Plot to Assassinate Arpaio," August 5, 1999).

Then there was the time Arpaio identified a threat upon his life that turned out to be an art student's sculpture of a spider left upon his lawn.

Half a million dollars and almost 17,000 hours later, the latest investigation of the Minutemen/Bermudez caper has gone nowhere, but yet the case remains open.

Coincidentally, we guess, New Times' alleged Class 5 felony bounced out of Pinal County and back into County Attorney Thomas' office at just about the time Arpaio was putting on his helmet and moving from one hotel to another to avoid the reputed gunslingers from the Mexican drug cartels.

According to the disappeared confidential informant, none of whose claims could be verified, Los Zetas, the enforcement arm of Mexican drug smugglers, knew where Sheriff Arpaio lived.

As these coincidences began to congeal: Los Zetas knew where Arpaio lives, New Times knows where Arpaio lives, conceivably New Times readers know where Arpaio lives . . .

BAM. GRAND JURY.

Or maybe these events are not related at all.

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