Always eager to mind a lady with a rep for giving excellent head (not just for the benefit of wrinkled, old Joe; she once demonstrated her talent on a Popsicle for a joke video at Channel 10), we did as we were told. We filed suit in Superior Court on September 23, asking that Arpaio and the sheriff's office be ordered under the Arizona Public Records law to produce the following documents that New Times has requested in writing dating back four months to May 24:
• Records regarding sheriff's office allegations of sexual misconduct by Arpaio's GOP primary opponent Saban. Dougherty asked for the records after Channel 15 -- based on information leaked to it by the sheriff's office -- aired a report on Saban in which it was claimed that he had raped his foster mother 30 years ago. Saban denied any such wrongdoing and said the TV story was based on a dirty trick by Arpaio's office. He told New Times that it was his foster mother who had sexually abused him when he was a minor. The Channel 15 reporter later was fired after the station discovered he had contributed money to Arpaio's campaign before the piece was broadcast.
Jackie Mercandetti
When John Dougherty asked Lisa MacPherson on a downtown street when public records would be made available, she said, "Never!" Inset: Outlaw Joe
Rand Carlson
All the drama aside, Joe's refused to release lawfully requested public records about his antics for four months!
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• Personnel records related to Arpaio confidant Deputy Sergeant Leo Driving Hawk, a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in an $88 million Ponzi scheme. In April 2002, U.S. District Judge Earl H. Carroll granted the commission's request for emergency orders aimed at helping victims of the investment scam recover assets.
• Receipts involving sales from jail vending machines. Dougherty demanded the financial records after he was told that items from the machines have been sold at substantially inflated prices. There's a high demand for the vending items because of Arpaio's policy of serving substandard, even spoiled, food to detainees. In this request, Dougherty also asked for records on the construction and operation of a large fish farm adjacent to the Tent City jail. The farm, ostensibly to provide food for prisoners, became operational at the same time health officials were issuing alerts on the dangers of standing water contributing to the spread of the West Nile virus.
• Contracts, financial records and official correspondence regarding a jail commissary (an inside-the-jail canteen), where, in addition to the vending machines, personal and food items have been hugely marked up.
• Payroll records of Deputy Don Overton, son-in-law of Maricopa County elections director Karen Osborne, and incident reports on the death of a jail inmate on July 9. The inmate death occurred in the shower area of the Durango jail just hours before country crooner Glen Campbell performed his internationally publicized Tent City concert as a pre-election favor to Arpaio. The sheriff had allowed Campbell to serve a drunk-driving sentence in MCSO's supposedly closed, air-conditioned detention facility in Mesa rather than in Tent City. The inmate death sparked a prisoner melee that prompted guards to launch numerous rounds of tear gas.
• Routine booking information on two men detained by the sheriff's office on weapons-violation allegations and incident reports related to the sheriff's SWAT team assault on the Ahwatukee home in which the tear-gas canisters were lobbed inside, burning down the family's house and burning to death the family pet. To the horror of neighborhood residents, the MCSO's armored personnel carrier was brought in to aid in the arrest of the man wanted on the traffic warrant. One of Arpaio's goobers forgot to put the emergency brake on the tank, and it rolled down a hill and smashed a parked car.
• A copy of a neighbor's videotape of the SWAT team raid seized by the sheriff's office.
• Routine arrest records on another SWAT team assault on the Westerner Motel in Wickenburg in which at least one man was detained and a room was wrecked. The motel's owner said the MCSO has refused to respond to his pleas for compensation for the damage.
• Files related to the use of the Mesa jail facility, which deputies call the Mesa Hilton and we call the Glen Campbell Unit, after Dougherty discovered that at least three privileged characters -- including Campbell and the daughter of dethroned Phoenix sports mogul Jerry Colangelo -- had served DUI sentences there. Colangelo did Arpaio a favor after his daughter was spared the dangerous Tent City experience, sponsoring a fund raiser for the sheriff's reelection attended by Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon. Dougherty wanted to find out if Arpaio had received other favors after wealthy or famous prisoners had been locked up at the Campbell Unit.
The sad thing is, what's listed here is only a drop in Arpaio's 10-gallon hat when it comes to problems and atrocities over his 12-year term. And you can bet that practically all the incidents prompting the above records demands will result in lawsuits out of which we taxpayers will have to pay big-time. Joe's cost us tens of millions of dollars in lawsuit damages already.
By the way, New Times also asks in the suit that the court order Arpaio to pay our attorneys' fees -- since all he and the clod-hoppers in his inner sanctum had to do was comply with the damn law instead of arrogantly putting themselves above it. We only pray for the miracle that Outlaw Joe will be court-ordered to cut into the fortune he's amassed while on the public payroll and pay them personally.
