Sheriff Joe wants to read Phil Gordon’s e-mail

When Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon spoke out against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, he had to know that retaliation would be swift.

It didn't take Gordon long to join the list.

On April 24, four weeks after Gordon's widely publicized denunciation of the sheriff at a César Chávez luncheon, sheriff's deputies fired off a public-records request seeking the mayor's e-mails, cell phone records, and meeting calendar.

The letter also demands e-mail correspondence for Police Chief Jack Harris, City Manager Frank Fairbanks, and all of Gordon's administrative staff. In all, the sheriff's investigators are seeking every single e-mail written by more than a dozen Phoenix staffers, from November to the date of the sheriff's demand.

But get this.

The Sheriff's Office claims this isn't about the mayor, or the city of Phoenix. No, it's about the sheriff's own agency — Arpaio supposedly needs voluminous information about Gordon & Co. in order to investigate his own deputies for racial profiling.

Right.

Arpaio began sponsoring "crime suppression sweeps" earlier this year, bringing hundreds of deputies and volunteer posse members to heavily Hispanic areas. Residents were pulled over for minor traffic offenses and questioned about their immigration status.

Gordon decried the practice in a series of high-profile speeches, beginning with the Chavez lunch in March. "The posse didn't lock up murderers," Gordon noted at the luncheon, correctly. "They locked up people with broken tail lights." He has since asked the Department of Justice to investigate the department.

But the department claims it's ready to investigate itself. Naturally, its top resources won't be its own records or its deputies — no, it needs Gordon's e-mails, phone records, and calendar information.

"[M]embers of the City of Phoenix Government alleged that racial profiling occurred by personnel from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office," wrote Deputy Travis Anglin of the sheriff's Internal Affairs Division, in a letter obtained by New Times. "Based on this information, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has initiated an internal investigation."

Then Anglin claimed that the mayor's e-mail and phone records were needed to "further" the investigation.

It's about the most disingenuous explanation I've ever heard, and that's saying something. Sure, Anglin did throw in two lines near the end of his four-page letter asking for "any complaints or reports" that the mayor received about the Sheriff's Office. But even that strikes me as an attempt to track down the sheriff's critics — not get to the bottom of any profiling allegations.

There is absolutely no way the Sheriff's Office needs the mayor's complete e-mail correspondence to figure out whether the sheriff is targeting Mexicans. And there's no reason Anglin would need to look at the mayor's calendar or his cell phone records, other than harassment, intimidation — or pure nosiness. Same with Fairbanks; same with Police Chief Harris.

Through his spokesman, Gordon declined comment. Toni Maccarone, a spokeswoman for the city, said that Phoenix intends to comply with the request. The Sheriff's Office did not respond to a request seeking comment.

Recent history shows that such requests have become one of the sheriff's favorite tricks of the trade.

Last fall, Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas were battling the judiciary over bail for illegal immigrants. Thomas and Arpaio argued that the judges were letting potential murderers walk free — and Thomas' former boss, Dennis Wilenchik, went to court on the county attorney's behalf to argue that the entire roster of Maricopa County judges had to recuse themselves from cases involving illegal immigrants — as if that was ever going to happen.

Have no doubt about it: This was a public relations war. And in December, Arpaio's press aide, Captain Paul Chagolla, made it clear just how far the sheriff was willing to go. He fired off a public-records request to Court Administrator Marcus Reinkensmeyer, demanding all his e-mail correspondence, every e-mail sent or received by Reinkensmeyer's aides, and all letters and memos that have passed through the court administrator's office, too.

We may never know exactly what they were looking for, other than dirt. Reinkensmeyer responded that filling the request would require his staff to review a staggering 16,000 e-mails. He asked Chagolla to narrow the request. Chagolla refuses to do so; the matter appears to be at an impasse.

Also last year, Arpaio and Thomas were investigating Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. At a press conference, the twosome alleged Goddard may have gone soft when prosecuting the state's former treasurer, in exchange for a hefty civil fee paid to state coffers.

But that may not have been the point. Last year, Arpaio's office put in six public-records requests to Goddard's office seeking hundreds of pages of documents — many of them the same records they'd previously received from Goddard via subpoena.

Subpoenaed records, no matter how embarrassing, are sealed. But documents obtained under the public-records law can be released to the press. The Sheriff's Office obviously hoped to embarrass Goddard, even if they didn't have enough to indict him.

Which brings us to Gordon.