Before the Incident Review Board met on August 9, 2005, Ron Lebowitz submitted his own take on the case: "It could be argued that Dougherty, when reviewing the very words that he chose to use when writing the July 1, 2004, and July 8, 2004, articles in particular, wanted to frighten the Sheriff, and Mrs. Arpaio, i.e. to make them fearful of life and limb by releasing the Sheriff's home address on the New Times Web site."
Then, according to Lebowitz, Dougherty would be happy "pursuant to his own scheme, by getting away with it, thereby obtaining a petty in-your-face sense of satisfaction, a component [of] his hubris."
Former New Times reporter John Dougherty
Joe Arpaio's director of communications, Lisa Allen, confronted John Dougherty outside a county jail in 2004. "So sue us!" she said when he asked about public records the MCSO was illegally withholding.
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The County Attorney's Office allowed Lebowitz to make a verbal pitch at the August 9 Incident Review Board meeting. But the board didn't buy it, and that left Andy Thomas in a tough spot between his senior staff and an irate Joe Arpaio.
A few weeks later, Thomas asked Pinal County Attorney Carter Olson to take over the case.
Ron Lebowitz immediately went to work on Olson, writing to him on September 12, 2005: "The Dougherty matter, for reasons which should be obvious, is something deeply felt and closely followed by the Sheriff."
He first met with County Attorney Olson in mid-November 2005, and shortly thereafter he sent a memo that foreshadowed what would happen once Dennis Wilenchik came onboard in July 2007 and demanded access to everything but the proverbial kitchen sink from New Times.
Lebowitz suggested that Olson issue subpoenas to New Times management "to appear before an investigative grand jury to collect the evidence considered necessary."
The attorney contacted the Pinal County Attorney by letter and phone incessantly, writing in early 2006 that the Arpaios "are experiencing a form of tension stemming from pent-up frustration and anxiety due to what appears to be a lack of activity in the Dougherty matter . . . A failure to go forward would convey the very worst of messages which we are certain you would never embrace."
In May 2006, County Attorney Olson and one of his prosecutors met with Lebowitz and longtime Arpaio public-relations chief Lisa Allen at the Mesa Hilton coffee shop.
"During that meeting," Lebowitz wrote to Olson afterward, "you raised arguments of insecurity and uncertainty which were identical to the kinds of arguments brought out in our previous meeting held in your office on November 15, 2005. The arguments which you have raised to justify your indefensible inclination to remain in a state of paralysis regarding the Dougherty matter have not improved with time. They do not age well, as if they are like some spirituous beverage. In short, your reasons for not going ahead with a prosecution, particularly against John Dougherty, remain feeble at best and craven at worst."
Lebowitz noted that Arpaio earlier had given Olson "a ten-day deadline on which to take action, and even though you promised thereafter to proceed against New Times, nothing further has occurred . . . this is intolerable. The [Sheriff's Office] must make some public statement regarding the threat and the prosecution's failure to take corrective action."
But despite the continual pressure, Carter Olson held his ground.
On August 31, 2006, John Dougherty wrote his final story as a New Times staff writer ("Vaya Con Dios"), a first-person column in which he spoke of honing "the art of attack journalism" at the paper.
"Attack journalism inevitably leads to confrontation with powerful interests," he wrote. "That is why the in-your-face, irreverent, counter-intuitive, fuck-'em-all attitude at New Times was the place for a guy like me."
Dougherty concluded that, even though he was moving on, Joe Arpaio "will never be free with New Times around."
Shortly after that article appeared, Lebowitz again wrote to Olson, saying that "Mr. Dougherty, through his most recent article, is encouraging New Times to go forward and, whenever and wherever possible, do even worse against the sheriff in the future as, if you will, a part of Dougherty's legacy."
As 2006 ended, Lebowitz may not have known it, but he finally seemed to be wearing Olson down.
On December 14, 2006, the county attorney wrote to New Times attorney Suskin that "the state of Arizona has drawn a line that the New Times appears to have crossed."
Olson offered the paper an out, saying he would settle the case without a criminal prosecution if it would remove the sheriff's home address from its Web site, admit the 1999 law was valid, and not violate it anymore. He added that if New Times believed the law to be unconstitutional, it should seek a court injunction to stop any further action on the matter.
New Times responded in its newsprint edition by publishing a Christmas card to Arpaio on its front cover, addressed to the sheriff's Fountain Hills home. It keyed to a column in which the paper explained that it couldn't, in good conscience, accept Olson's deal ("Joe Strikes Back," December 21, 2006).
A few months into the New Year, Carter Olson won appointment to the Pinal Superior Court bench, and that county's Board of Supervisors chose Jim Walsh to replace him. Citing his conflict of interest, Walsh tossed the hot potato back to Thomas.
On July 11, 2007, Team Wilenchik came onboard at Thomas' behest to potentially bust John Dougherty and, possibly, New Times, as a corporate entity.
It was almost three years to the day since Dougherty had written the column containing Arpaio's home address.
Things were just beginning to get interesting.
