Arizona AG Tom Horne's Sex Scandal Scuttles Gubernatorial Bid

Horne and others also suspected Kathleen Winn, in charge of outreach for the AG's Office. I knew Winn from before her involvement with Horne.

It was Winn who gave me a heads-up about the 2010 primary-watching party at Rezzonico's house, precipitating my interest in Horne and his effort to deny Thomas the GOP nomination.

Ray Stern

Attorney General Tom Horne with Horne's outreach director, Kathleen Winn (right), at the Arizona Republican Party 2012 election night event at the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Phoenix.

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Assistant Attorney General Carmen Chenal, the employee Horne's "having an affair with," according to the FBI.

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I know nothing about Flynn, save from what I've read in public records. I know Richard as a contender for the Democratic nod in 2008 for county attorney.

None of these individuals, including Winn, was a source for the July 2011 column on Chenal.

So it's interesting to see the result of that column: a doorstop of official interviews of AG employees, signed statements from the interviewees acknowledging they could be fired if they do not cooperate, and a search for my cell-phone number in all state phone records.

(One two-minute phone call to my cell came from the desk of an AG employee in Tucson who claimed no knowledge of the call to investigators.)

Horne gave Hinchey permission to search employee e-mail accounts, and she combed through online comments attached to my article, knowing that some of them had come from within the office.

"I later learned," wrote Hinchey in her FBI statement, "that AG Horne . . . recruited a group of persons to blog in support of Horne and Chenal and question . . . the article."

Hinchey added that this information was confirmed by Horne and Rezzonico.

Apparently, Horne made an online comment on my column under the name "Arizonatruth," mentioning a memo that had been sent to me by Rezzonico, one I had not published or quoted.

When I spotted the comment, I responded, noting that the commenter must be in the AG's Office.

"Mr. Lemons," Arizonatruth replied, "what makes you think these posts are coming from inside the office? Again, proving my point that you will say things that have no truth or facts to back it up."

Through Rezzonico, Horne requested a meeting with me for an off-the-record conversation, which we had on July 19 at the First Watch restaurant in downtown Phoenix.

I cannot divulge the content of our conversation because of an off-the-record agreement.

Hinchey's investigation dragged on for several months.

Incidentally, there is nothing illegal about a government employee talking confidentially to a reporter. The information I was seeking, via my public-records requests, did not relate to a grand jury or criminal investigation.

In fact, all the information in the original July 2011 column came from public records, much of it from Chenal's file with the State Bar, which a judge since has partially sealed on the request of Chenal's lawyer.

Meg Hinchey's investigation revealed the AG's Office to be a viper's nest of backstabbing, gossip, and resentment. And the investigation uncovered potential illegality unrelated to its initial purpose.

For instance, Assistant AG Mike Flynn, like many others, told Hinchey he believed Kathleen Winn to be the leak.

He opined that Winn might have "narcissistic personality disorder" and offered that he had heard a rumor of an affair between Chenal and Horne in a passage redacted in the AG's release of Hinchey's case file.

According to Hinchey's report to the FBI, Horne stated in a meeting, with Hinchey and Bistrow present, that "he had been told by two women previously that Winn had said she wanted to have sex with him, but he didn't believe that to be true."

Apparently, there was some rivalry between Chenal and Winn for Horne's attention.

"He always defends her," Chenal told Hinchey. "The only thing Tom and I have fought over in 30 years is Kathleen."

In her interview with Hinchey, office legal assistant Lucia DeVernai attributed salacious quotes to Winn.

"C'mon," Winn supposedly said to DeVernai. "If Tom was going to have an affair, who do you think he would have one with, Carmen or me?"

DeVernai claimed Winn told a woman (not Chenal) who liked Horne, "I'm the new girlfriend; you're the crabby old woman."

When I asked Winn about such remarks for this article — specifically the comment about "an affair" — she conceded it sounded like something she might say.

"I could've said it kiddingly," she said. "But I don't remember saying that at all."

Winn, who's married to a retired Boeing executive, possesses a ribald sense of humor.

Like her response when I asked her about DeVernai's claim that a woman (not Chenal) offered to "arm wrestle" Winn for Horne's attention.

"I think we should do a big mud-wrestling thing," she cracked to me. "I'd be more than happy to take Carmen on."

Regarding rumors of an affair with her and Horne, Winn said that "would never happen," even if "Tom and I were the last man and woman on Earth."

When I first heard rumors of a Chenal-Horne affair in 2011, I asked Winn about them. She told me she had no knowledge of any such liaison.

Because people were aware that we knew each other, and because there was apparent hostility between the blonde in the office (Winn) and the brunette (Chenal), all roads in Hinchey's probe led back to Winn.

Even Horne suspected Winn, but he wouldn't allow Hinchey to question her. It seemed to many that Winn was protected, or "bulletproof" (DeVernai's word).