Most Popular

National Features >

  • SF Weekly

    Identity Plagiarism

    A blogger steals someone else's life story and calls it her own.

    By Ashley Harrell

  • Westword

    Fuel's Gold

    How William Orr's quest for better, cheaper gas became a crime.

    By Alan Prendergast

  • Miami New Times

    Mold Over Miami

    The family of a dead judge blames a creeping fungus in the federal courthouse.

    By Tim Elfrink

  • The Pitch

    McCain Girl

    I worked at Kmart with John McCain's director of strategy.

    By Alan Scherstuhl

Enemies List

Continued from page 4

Published on November 29, 2007

It wasn't even a year later when Ron McClure contacted the Sheriff's Office. McClure, who owned a rival tow firm, told a deputy that Watkins was engaging in unethical practices. He put the detectives in touch with two former Cactus employees who elaborated on the complaint. (Cactus had previously taken out a restraining order against one of the men.)

In April 2005, a manager at Cactus awoke to deputies banging on his front door at 4:30 in the morning. The deputies put the man's school-age children into a room alone and ordered their mother, in her nightgown, into a squad car. The deputies then seized box after box of "evidence" — including homework and Little League photos.

Deputies kicked in the doors of Watkins' rental property, too. Then they headed to Cactus Towing and took just about everything that wasn't bolted down: records, computers, cash, even employees' cell phones.

Because it was the last day of the month, and the company bills on the first, it was disastrous. "They timed it to put us out of business," Watkins says.

And they very nearly did. The raid was covered heavily on TV newscasts and in newspapers. (Watkins' lawyer, Kent Nicholas, says he received his copy of the search warrants from a reporter.)

Naturally, the municipalities that contracted with Cactus didn't like the bad publicity. At least one police chief told Watkins that a sheriff's deputy called and urged him to stop using Cactus.

Watkins sold the business for much less than what it was once worth. "We were getting beaten up so bad in the press every week, I had to." He's also paid "an army of lawyers," he says, proceeding to list nearly a dozen.

The raid was nearly three years ago. Last year, Arpaio told one reporter that he'd finished the investigation and was sending the case to prosecutors.

Not a single charge has been filed.

"Everybody says, 'Don't say anything, and it'll go away,'" Watkins says. "And probably, it would. But some of us should stand up and say that enough is enough.

"We got accused of so much stuff. And my belief is, it was all because of politics."


In the 2004 election, Arpaio managed to beat Dan Saban in the primary, and Lee Watkins' old pal, W. Steven Martin, in the general election. Sheriff Joe would get his mug on TV for another four years.

But everything around him was changing. Arpaio's old nemesis, County Attorney Rick Romley, had retired after 15 years in office. The moderate Republican was to be replaced by Andrew Peyton Thomas, an ambitious Harvard-educated lawyer. Though Thomas had previously campaigned unsuccessfully to become attorney general, he was known for writing books on conservative theories, not for his courtroom experience.

Thomas' conservative credentials proved to be the key to his election. Because an open seat in the County Attorney's Office is a rarity, the primary drew five Republican candidates. Thomas distinguished himself by running far to the right while the others duked it out in the center.

Then, in the general election, Thomas drew a Democratic opponent, Don Harris, so controversial that the party's own chair announced that he wasn't supporting him. Thomas won handily.

When he took office in January 2005, Thomas made it clear he was following Arpaio's playbook. Politics and retribution would be the order of the day.

The prosecutor who ran the county's sex crimes unit, Cindi Nanetti, a widely respected and well-liked veteran, had openly campaigned for Thomas' opponent. Despite being the reigning "Arizona Prosecutor of the Year," Nanetti was demoted.

Meanwhile, Thomas packed his eighth-floor "executive team" with political activists with little experience in criminal prosecution:

• Tim LaSota was appointed after being active in the far-right Federalist Society. (His father Jack, a well-known lobbyist and former Arizona attorney general, chipped in money for Thomas. And Tim LaSota is connected in other ways: He's married to the niece of Congressman Ed Pastor, D-Phoenix.)

• Miguel Martinez is Thomas' brother-in-law. He isn't a lawyer, but he was nevertheless given a job as a community liaison.

• Rachel Alexander was a GOP activist once named "Republican babe of the week" by a New Jersey-based Web site. She was made Thomas' policy adviser, a job that seems to consist mostly of blogging about conservative issues, prosecutors say.

• Phil MacDonnell, a fellow Harvard grad, is a veteran lobbyist who'd represented everybody from the Arizona Newspaper Association to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Although MacDonnell hadn't worked as a prosecutor in 20 years, he was named chief deputy county attorney

• Mark Goldman was Thomas' oddest choice. Though trained as a lawyer, Goldman made his money in the mortgage business. (Records show he still owns two brokerage companies in Arizona.) Goldman was Thomas' top donor, chipping in a staggering $10,000 during the 2005 campaign. His reward was a volunteer position on the eighth floor.

« Previous Page   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   Next Page »

Phoenix New Times Insiders

  • Local food, music and news blasts
  • Free Stuff
Backpage.com