Information Blockade

Relieving me of any recording equipment allowed him to "maintain the integrity of the inspection process," he claimed.

We strolled past the booking area. Grim-looking prisoners were lined up on one side of a long, chest-high wall. Deputies in front of computer screens were on the other side.

As we walked through security checkpoints and a metal detector, the deputies looked confused. They wondered who Chagolla was and what he was doing there. He explained that he was from the MCSO public information office and that he was taking me inside to inspect public records. They seemed really perplexed then. I asked a jail staffer if she had ever seen the media inside the jail to inspect records. She laughed and said, "Never!"

Chagolla quickly said he has, in fact, taken media to jail to look at records. He mentioned that he once escorted East Valley Tribune reporter Mark Flatten into the jail to inspect documents.

On both occasions, the exercise was meant as ­intimidation.

Flatten had been working on what would be a series of stories about how, right after the 2004 election, supporters of Arpaio's opponent, Dan Saban, had been demoted, while those who had supported the sheriff's re-election campaign were given choice assignments. Flatten's January 2005 story focused on the shakeup of the SWAT team that put inexperienced commanders on the front lines. One of the sheriff's former spokesmen, Lieutenant Dave Trombi, for example, was made the SWAT leader despite having no prior experience in the area.

On December 16, 2004, a few weeks after the transfers occurred, two deputies were shot by an illegal immigrant the SWAT team was trying to pick up on a warrant in east Mesa. One of the deputies was Sean Pearce, son of Russell Pearce, the East Valley lawmaker who had once been Arpaio's chief deputy.

Pearce and the other wounded deputy, Lew Argetsinger, told Flatten they were concerned the SWAT changes had put deputies and the public in danger.

The Tribune reporter submitted public records requests with the Sheriff's Office for dispatch tapes that would prove the new commanders had made mistakes, verifying what sources were telling him. Flatten says Chagolla initially told him he could have the tapes, but that the Tribune would have to agree in advance to pay whatever the MCSO decided to charge for the work in producing them.

The two negotiated over the tapes for about three months. The Sheriff's Office finally agreed to release the two tapes for $25 each. But if Flatten wanted to hear them before he bought them, he would have to do so inside the jail, Chagolla insisted.

In my case, it was clear that Chagolla was miffed over me requesting his e-mails. And no wonder. As shown above, the e-mails had examples of how he coddles certain media and berates reporters who cross him or the sheriff.

E-mail evidence had already caught the Sheriff's Office in one apparent violation of the Appeals Court order: On October 12, Doug Matteson, a member of the Sheriff's PR staff, sent a press release to 50 different media e-mail addresses, detailing the Chase Field arrests of four rowdy fans at a Diamondbacks game.

The e-mail wasn't sent to media the Sheriff dislikes, including the View. Nor was it posted on the Sheriff's Web site or made available in any way to the View, as the court had demanded.

When I pointed this out to Chagolla, he claimed the e-mail was a "news brief" and not a press release, and therefore not covered by the court order. Yet the Sheriff's Office routinely posts on its Web site "news briefs," which are indistinguishable from what it labels "news releases."

Chagolla lashed out at me in an e-mail, "Before you lie, twist, spin or malign this organization again . . . know that I am prepared for the New Times slanderous comments. You and New Times will not blackmail this office."

Chagolla told me my media e-mailrecords were ready for viewing two months after I requested them. But he said that I, like other New Times reporters, wouldn't be allowed to see them at Arpaio's Wells Fargo Building headquarters.

Instead, I was to view the few hundred pages of records at the downtown Phoenix office of another of the sheriff's private lawyers, Michele Iafrate.

After I arrived there, I pulled out my digital camera and began taking digital photos of the records.

Iafrate's clerk, Cari Shehorn, told me to stop, saying the only way I could get copies was to pay 50 cents a page for them. She ordered me to leave when I kept taking pictures, adding that it might be considered trespassing if I stayed. I bantered with Shehorn, asking her for the legal justification for banning me from taking photos of public records.

Iafrate soon appeared. Her lips were tight in aggravation. "What's the problem here?" she barked.

I explained, and she said the law only allows reporters to inspect records, not to make their own copies. I knew officials at many other government agencies in the Valley, such as the Governor's Office, allowed the public to use digital cameras and handheld scanners to copy records. I questioned Iafrate's knowledge of the law, and left.