Hendershott's Stuffed Rattlesnake -- as Good a Symbol for the Former Chief Deputy as Any -- to Educate Kids

Sheriff Arpaio's disgraced chief deputy, Dave Hendershott, once told us that a stuffed rattlesnake he kept in his office was named after former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley. Maybe that's what he told visitors, but we figured the forked-tongue serpent was his personal totem. Every new page released from...

By Ray Stern

May 5, 2011

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Sheriff Arpaio's disgraced chief deputy, Dave Hendershott, once told us that a stuffed rattlesnake he kept in his office was named after former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley.

Maybe that's what he told visitors, but we figured the forked-tongue serpent was his personal totem. Every new page released from various investigative reports seems to confirm that.

Just before Arpaio began his news conference on Tuesday about Hendershott and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu's Munnell Memo investigation, we chatted with Jerry Sheridan, a longtime sheriff's employee and Arpaio loyalist whom Arpaio was about to name as his new chief deputy.

"What are you going to do with the snake in your new office?" we couldn't help but ask.

"Ricky?" he said with a smile.

Sheridan tells us he's moving the thing out and giving it to a children's group for educational purposes.

Just a bit more spring cleaning for the office.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.