Thought I'd share a few missives I've intercepted of late, the first being a fundraising letter from County Attorney Candy Thomas wherein he trumpets the, ahem, accomplishments of his office, including denying bail for suspected illegal immigrants, convicting immigrants of self-smuggling themselves into the country, and helping to bring Maricopa County perilously close to a police state.
Of course, there's no mention in the letter of the arrests of my bosses Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin, New Times' co-founders, or of his former employer Dennis Wilenchik, the rogue special prosecutor Thomas hired to pursue this paper. And there's nary a peep about the $2 million and counting in public funds that Wilencheckbook continues to bank, working on civil cases for Thomas, though Thomas had to fire him as special prosecutor.
Yet, Thomas does whine about the much-deserved obloquy he's endured for screwing up so badly on so many fronts.
"I have been sued, picketed, vilified in the media and threatened," sniffs Candy,adding, "Some media organizations have even published my home address and the name of my wife and four children on their website [sic]. They did this even though they know I prosecute some 40,000 felony cases a year against some of the most dangerous gang members and criminals in America."
The part about his home address being published by "some media organizations" is total bullshit. Back in October, AZCentral.com published a link to the County Recorder's Web site, where anyone with a lick of sense can ferret Thomas' address out for themselves. The article itself was so obscure that reporters for The Arizona Republic who attended Candy's press conference on the matter hadn't seen it. The massive irony was that Thomas was drawing the article to the attention of far more people by holding a press conference on it. Thomas even had printouts of the AZCentral.com article distributed to the journos present! As I asked in my blog item back then, "ROSY RED HERRING,"
"If you were really worried about the safety of your tykes, why would you hold a press conference announcing to ALL of the media that some obscure online story linked to info. about your rugrats? Uh, political gain might be one reason."
And now Thomas is using his four kids AGAIN! Dredging up this bogus threat as a way of raking in some campaign scrilla. Nice father. First he essentially endangers his own children, then he turns them into bait for political contributions.
You can read the fundraising letter in its entirety, here.
Also, a former intern for Thomas by the name of Peter Leslie has been trying to dig up dirt on Democrat Gerald Richard, the Phoenix police department lawyer who's expected to challenge Candy's bid for reelection next year. Leslie has submitted a public records request to the PHX cops for a buttload of info on Richard, including travel and expense reports, his current salary, and any position he may have taken on Operations Order 1.4. You know, the one that keeps the po-po from rounding up Mexicans willy-nilly in paddy wagons.
Leslie also submitted a public records request to the Arizona Supreme Court's Commission on Minorities asking for everything they've got on the guy because Richard was for 12 years the commission's chair. Basically, the commission tries to:
"...address disproportionate minority contact in the justice system; enrich the diversity of the judiciary to reflect the communities it serves, while maintaining the highest level of qualifications; promote cultural competency in its judicial officers and employees; and enhance communication with minority communities through education and collaboration with public and private sector programs that aspire to similar purposes."
It's an unpaid position, BTW. Richard had been on it since its inception in 1994. He stepped down in 2006.
Sounds like a standard liberal, do-gooder deal. But in the minds of wing-nuts like Thomas and his ex-interns, such a Chairmanship is likely considered the apex of anti-Americanism. I gave Leslie a call, and he admitted to poking into Richard's background. When I asked him if he was doing it on the behalf of County Attorney Thomas, he danced around the question a bit.
"I'm not a paid office worker or anything like that," he told me. "It's been a while since I've been downtown."
Leslie says he went to ASU and currently works at a car dealership. He said the request for info. on Richard was just for him to help him make up his mind on the candidates. Asked if he was an intern in Thomas' office, he stated, "I'm not currently an intern in his office." Thomas' PIO Michael Anthony Scerbo informed me that, "Peter Leslie is a former intern whose internship expired in December 2006. He is a private citizen who is not currently employed at this office nor is he currently serving as an intern."
Ah, politics. Back in Richard Nixon's day, they called it rat-fucking. Though, here as then, it's the rats who want to do the fucking.
You can read Leslie's request to the cops, here. His inquiry to the AZ Supreme Court, here
