In short order, the voters would throw Nadolski out of office for challenging Chief Ortega.
There is a cynical side to all of us. There is a place in our souls that is satisfied when our prejudices are confirmed, when the welfare recipient is shown driving a new Cadillac, when the multimillion-dollar ballplayer is discovered with hookers, when politicians are shown taking bribes.
That has been the story of AzScam. In January 1991, we all watched, transfixed, as the police released carefully edited snippets of videotape that showed legislators stuffing cash into their pockets. The ensuing indictments of seven politicians and 11 political operatives were accompanied by a public outcry that was deafening.
None of us stopped to look at AzScam's underbelly.
The press was escorted by law enforcement officers for selected viewing of the record.
Later, individual news organizations would establish teams to paw through the evidence. But by then, the blood was in the water and all of us demanded the red meat of crooked politicians.
No one wanted to read in the newspaper or look at a telecast that asked the fundamental question: What proof was there that any of these politicians and their retinues ever took a dishonest dollar in the past? What was the legal justification for AzScam?
Who would stand in front of the mob and ask such foolishness?
Patrick Cantelme was not part of John Gotti's crime family, a hoodlum who had somehow escaped the law. He was a union officer and a civic leader whose passion was organizing people to vote.
Ruben Ortega and Patrick Cantelme were political opponents.
And that is all they were.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, "Of all the rights in the Constitution, the most precious is the right to be left alone."
These are not merely the sentiments of a liberal jurist. It is against the law for the police to target the outspoken for elimination. There are very specific federal civil rights statutes that protect the politically active citizen:
"Every person who . . . subjects or causes to be subjected any citizen of the United States . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured.
"If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution . . ." they are liable.
I asked the firefighter how he regarded the unrelenting law enforcement pressure his criticism of Ortega had provoked.
Cantelme maintained a certain stoic outlook about his ordeal with the police.
"I guess there was a time when it bothered me. But it's become second nature."
That's what standup guys say. They don't come to newspapers complaining about police harassment. You have to go find them, and then they shrug their shoulders. But there is more to the story than that.
In April 1991, three months after the conclusion of AzScam, law enforcement continued to fish for Patrick Cantelme.
Labor leaders Robert Griffin and Dennis Teel were interrogated under oath about any possible wrongdoing by Cantelme they might know about. Minor players in AzScam--Teel, for example, had met with Stedino only once--neither was accused of criminal activity. Law enforcement simply could not resist taking another swing at the firefighter as they pursued their indictments. Griffin, in fact, would be questioned on the same topic again that September.
Finally aware of what was going on, Cantelme was alarmed by what he saw.
"It became apparent they were going to try to get someone to say something, and once something like that is said, it doesn't matter if you're cleared," said the man who is still living down a ten-year-old cocaine allegation.
"Everything runs through your mind," said Cantelme.
"Who remembers a conversation from six months ago? Did I say or do anything that would embarrass my family or union?"
Although he had done nothing wrong, although he was not indicted, the firefighter decided enough was enough.
Cantelme immediately stepped down from the Transportation Committee he served on. He has not been to the statehouse since AzScam.
He speaks of his 11-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter from his first marriage and his new family and his concern for all of their well-being when he explains his new low political profile.
"You didn't see the firefighters out front on the city's recent bond problems," said Cantelme, describing the difference in his life after AzScam.
Patrick Cantelme is no longer the young rebel who charged and changed City Hall. Nor is he any longer the outspoken critic of a controversial police chief. But Phoenix was a better place when he was.
Pat Cantelme is a middle-aged man with a family and loved ones. He should never have been forced to choose between his political conscience and his heart.
