Dennis the Menace

Thomas fired Wilenchik on a Friday. But that dismissal only extends to criminal cases. The following Monday, Wilenchik was back in court, defending Arpaio in a lawsuit brought by an inmate who slipped and broke his neck in the jail's intake unit. Wilenchik prevailed before a jury, although it's debatable whether the county actually saved much money by taking the case to court.

Wilenchik seems determined to see it go on for another 30. Before he collects any more taxpayer money, someone from the county's personnel department should look into Dennis Wilenchik's résumé.

He says he clerked for the Arizona Supreme Court; the court says that's not the case. He says he was a judicial commissioner for the county; his real title was lowly bailiff. And he says he was appointed to the county attorney's special operations unit — but he never worked there a day. (See Wilenchik's résumé as it appeared on his Web site on Dec. 18, 2007. And here's another Wilenchik biography, from another Wilenchik web site as it appeared Dec. 28, 2007, in which he's referred to as "Presiding Criminal Judge, Maricopa County," 1977. That was before he passed the bar exam.)

This is not surprising, coming from Dennis Wilenchik.

If the New Times case isn't enough, consider Wilenchik's actions in another high-profile case this fall. Wilenchik represented the sheriff in a defamation suit brought by Dan Saban, the Buckeye police chief who ran against Arpaio in 2004. Arpaio prevailed in court; the plaintiff's case was weak. But it's Wilenchik's extra-judicial activities regarding Saban that are truly alarming, particularly when you consider that Saban has made it clear he'll challenge Arpaio again in 2008.

Wilenchik has admitted that his goal is to get Saban fired from his job with Buckeye, and strip him of his status as a peace officer. He's written to public officials and entities including Governor Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Terry Goddard, the Buckeye Town Council, the Mesa Police Department (Saban's longtime former employer) and the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, the state police-certification agency known as POST. He repeatedly implies that Saban admits to having raped his adoptive mother, Ruby Norman, three decades ago. Saban has never admitted anything of the sort.

And then there is Wilenchik's now well-known behavior toward Timothy Ryan, the county's associate criminal presiding judge. A clip on YouTube features Wilenchik imploring Ryan to step down on behalf of Wilenchik's client, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, for refusing to smack down illegal immigrants.

He's certainly put a dent in his 15 minutes of fame over the past few months, but in many ways Dennis Wilenchik remains a mystery. The best likeness New Times has of him is an oil painting he commissioned of himself; the Arizona Republic repeatedly runs a picture of the side of his face. Indeed, finding information on this guy is like working on a paint-by-numbers canvas — it's painstaking work, filling in one small detail at a time.

Wilenchik doesn't make it any easier. While he did answer specific questions about his résumé, he refused repeated requests for an interview for this story; his bosses, Arpaio and Thomas, also declined. The State Bar of Arizona is investigating complaints about both Wilenchik and Thomas, but details won't be available for months. County officials confirm that Wilenchik's law firm has billed more than $2 million since 2005 but, as of press time, refused to release individual invoices that would confirm just who's been paid for what, and for which case.

The few details that are available have been hashed over. Suddenly, a man who's operated mainly in the high-stakes, exclusive world of civil litigation is being discussed all over town.

Earlier this month, e-mails circulated among local lawyers with the news that Wilenchik is being paid to lecture on ethics, through the National Business Institute, a company that sponsors continuing legal education lectures. CLE is a requirement for maintaining one's standing with the state bar. On December 14, Wilenchik offered his advice on "ethical considerations," including identifying and avoiding conflicts of interest, confidentiality issues, rules of professional responsibility and fee issues. (For details about Wilenchik's upcoming lectures on ethics and other topics, or to order tapes of his presentations, go to www.nbi-sems.com.)

Wilenchik clearly makes an impression. Those who have faced him in court describe him as smart, aggressive — and insufferable.