Officially, Hegarty chose retirement over discipline after the probe concluded earlier this year and sustained the allegation of accepting free baseball tickets; his punishment called for him to receive two days off without pay.
Hegarty accused his friend of overseeing an unfair investigation, claiming Halliday's objectivity was in major doubt because the director's job also was "at stake" in the case.
Jack Hegarty
Karen Rasmussen
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The DPS was slow to release documents related to this case. A March request for the investigative report on Hegarty finally was made available to New Times in early October. Following that, Halliday would respond only through DPS spokesman Bart Graves, who in turn sent e-mails to New Times summarizing Halliday's responses. Some, though not all, of New Times' questions were answered.
Though the report details the interesting and tawdry details of how the DPS supervisors accepted baseball tickets from the Arizona Trucking Association and then tried to cover their trails, other aspects of the problem are worth exploring: just how much the trucking industry benefited from its close relationship with DPS higher-ups and whether road safety was affected.
The Fiesta Bowl and Arredondo scandals may have been bigger, but this one may have had more impact — literally.
Two years ago, Hegarty, with Halliday's approval, cut truckers a break by ending random stops of commercial vehicles by most DPS officers. Since that time, the DPS has added dozens more officers to its dedicated commercial-vehicle-enforcement unit, and the total number of inspections has increased. So it's difficult to determine the impact of the change.
It's possible, statistics show, that the change resulted in more commercial-vehicle accidents.
There's certainly no indication that the trucking association's habit of giving away pricey baseball tickets to DPS supervisors has made state highways safer.
Hegarty was one of several assistant directors, but he acted as second-in-command for his longtime buddy, Halliday.
He'd been promoted to the job of Highway Patrol chief in early 2010 by Halliday, not long after Governor Jan Brewer appointed Halliday director of the DPS. Halliday replaced Roger Vanderpool, who'd been the choice of former Governor Janet Napolitano.
The leadership styles of Hegarty and Halliday were considered caustic and heavy-handed. Halliday, a 35-year veteran of the force who had retired before returning as director, made waves even before his appointment was confirmed by the state Senate by announcing plans for a major shakeup of leadership staff. Both men were viewed largely by the 1,600-employee agency as poor decision-makers who were too rigid in dealing with subordinates.
In early 2011, an internal survey of DPS employees sponsored by the Fraternal Order of Police showed that 95 percent believed a morale problem existed at the agency and that the agency wasn't headed in the right direction. Hegarty was the primary target of the disgruntled state troopers, the survey showed.
The survey spurred Halliday to put together a panel of officers and civilians to help with the problem. The committee's main recommendation was to dump Hegarty.
"The disruptive leadership and management performance of . . . Hegarty has consistently been responsible for stifling the performance of Executive Staff," the committee's report stated. "Reclassifying . . . Hegarty will immediately improve the Director's credibility and overall morale within DPS."
Fortunately for Hegarty, he and Halliday were close, and the boss didn't want to get rid of him. Despite the survey and panel recommendation, the biggest action Halliday had taken against Hegarty by the time of the September 8 baseball game was asking troopers to complete a survey about Hegarty that was worded to remind everyone of Hegarty's accomplishments and morale-building ideas. Halliday also noted in the survey that removing Hegarty as chief of the Highway Patrol "would be a very significant change" to DPS leadership.
But then Hegarty, with his very public ethical breach over the tickets, forced Halliday to do something.
After the investigation of Hegarty — or perhaps during it — the friendship between Hegarty and Halliday became strained. It's difficult for an outside observer to know who told the truth in the probe, but the report makes it clear that either Hegarty told some fibs or, as Hegarty claims, Halliday protected himself by failing to come clean about the practice of accepting tickets.
It could be a little of each.
It wasn't the first time Halliday was accused of stacking the deck against someone he was investigating. In a November 11, 2010, cover story ("Hot Mess at the DPS"), New Times detailed the case of a DPS pilot fired after a questionable investigation launched by Halliday into the pilot's rocky relationship with Halliday's daughter. Last year, the former officer, Geoff Jacobs, lost a federal wrongful-termination lawsuit against Halliday over the debacle.
Nor is this the first time Halliday has been accused of getting too cozy with the trucking industry.
Before his February 10, 2010, confirmation hearing before the state Senate, lawmakers got an anonymous letter expressing concern that Halliday was a longtime friend of Gary Fitzsimmons, safety director of Swift Trucking, a Phoenix-based transportation company.
"Mr. Halliday informed numerous individuals that Mr. Fitzsimmons had influence through Swift Transportation and the Arizona Trucking Association who were willing to endorse him through their influence with Governor Brewer," the letter stated. "If this is true, the commercial vehicle industry has gained significant, direct influence with the individual and the agency primarily responsible for their regulation and enforcement."
