Information Blockade

On August 25, Channel 15 assignment editor Michael Slim e-mailed Chagolla about where rapper DMX, who was being investigated for animal abuse, had been convicted previously.

Chagolla responded six minutes later: "You might try looking around in N.J," where it turned out DMX had another animal-cruelty beef.

While Arpaio and his people cater hugely to most TV stations, individual members of their staffs have been targeted for rebuke.

Gilbert Zermeno, an investigative producer for Channel 5, has a reputation for asking questions that reflect skepticism of the sheriff's policies.

E-mails between him and Chagolla show that one squabble apparently started when Zermeno, in requesting the price of some copies of public records, referred to Chagolla as "Paul," rather than his rank at the time of lieutenant. Chagolla insisted Zermeno treat him like a "complete stranger" and use the formal title.

"Since it is apparent that you intend on being discourteous with me, I intend to reward your behavior in the same manner," Chagolla wrote. "However, before I begin to act on your lack of manners, I will again ask that you address me by rank and last name."

Zermeno shot back, "Agreed, we do not have to be friends. My friends would never think of throwing me under the bus as many times as you have!"

Zermeno then accused Chagolla of blackballing him. He recalled how he once recorded Chagolla telling Arpaio, "I don't talk to [Zermeno], boss."

Chagolla admitted in the exchange that he made the comment, then explained: "Your own coworkers say that you are out to get the Sheriff and that your personal views have clouded your work product. Your own actions have mistreated and offended both [the sheriff], others and me."

Meanwhile, another Channel 5 employee, assignment editor Tamra Ingersoll, asks Chagolla in an e-mail if he's in the office — so she can bring him a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

"It's easier when you get along with them than when you don't," she lets on to New Times later.

Rob Koebel, fired from Channel 15 news, is the best example of what happens when the media gets too cozy with the Sheriff.

Koebel's rapport with Arpaio grew to include a $100 campaign contribution at a fund-raising dinner. Then Koebel was used to break the "news" that Arpaio's 2004 competitor for sheriff, Dan Saban, was under investigation by the MCSO for what turned out to be a bogus charge of raping his adoptive mother more than 30 years ago.

Koebel was dismissed by the station over the incident, but when he later had to serve a 12-day sentence for extreme DUI, he was allowed to do it at the Mesa jail, where Arpaio incarcerates celebrity inmates. Singer Glen Campbell was famously put inside what MCSO insiders call the "Mesa Hilton" after his DUI conviction.

Channel 12 didn't get the same friendly treatment from the Sheriff's Office as Koebel once enjoyed when reporter Joe Dana asked for salary information on the Sheriff's public relations team recently. Dana wanted to know what the public paid for the team, since Arpaio's office had exceeded its overtime budget by $1 million just four months into its fiscal year.

Perhaps still reeling from Channel 12's "Inmate Idle" snub earlier this year — for which the Sheriff's Office had already retaliated against the station once — Arpaio spokeswoman Lisa Alle MacPherson sent out a November 7 letter "to our associates in the local media."

In it, MacPherson claims that both New Times and Channel 12 file more requests for public records from the MCSO than any other media (not exactly shameful for news organizations, though she meant it as such). Then she got down to business:

"For your information. by the way, Channel 12 is planning a profile on this PIO office on one of their newscasts soon. We are not at all certain of their intentions so in the interest of fairness, here's how it breaks out . . . "

MacPherson then gives all the other Valley news organizations the scoop on the salaries. Except, of course, New Times, the West Valley View and certain Spanish-language media.

After New Times reporter John Dickerson requested an interview with Arpaio for an article for this series, Paul Chagolla phoned Dickerson back, thinking he still worked for the monthly Scottsdale Times.

Dickerson had left the Times in July, but he allowed Chagolla to rant about an article his former paper had published in November. The article, by Maribeth Conway, quoted Arpaio critics — like Arizona U.S. Marshal David Gonzales — who say the sheriff should arrest fewer average illegal immigrants and more of the thousands of Valley fugitives with felony warrants he ignores.