| A computer found in the home Captain Joel Fox (above), its operating system registered to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, contained evidence of a scandal -- and links to teen porn sites. |
A laptop used by Captain Joel Fox and registered to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office contained evidence related to the state's investigation of a secret slush fund -- and links to teen porn sites.
Fox had saved plenty of interesting e-mails on the laptop, and there also seems to be evidence that ties Fox to the ad created by his secret slush fund: A Dan Saban "timeline."
The Gateway laptop's hard-drive was copied by state and federal investigators, becoming part of the mountain of evidence in the SCA case. The Windows operating system was registered to the MCSO. But not everything investigators saw was directly related to the alleged conspiracy.
"In unallocated space" on the hard drive, agent Mike Edwards noticed, "was recovered multiple hits referring to pornographic sites to teenagers."
Scroll down for a screen shot from one of his reports.
(Click here for the PDF that contains the material we drew from for this post -- warning, it's a massive document. For starters, try the seven-page summary report of some of the things found in the laptop, which begins on page 115 of this PDF.)
While there's no way of knowing whether the models shown in these Web sites were underage, we do know that when politics are involved, Sheriff Arpaio and his upper-level minions have investigated others for much lesser offenses.
We also don't know what the last part refers to, or where it came from. Maybe Fox, who's on paid administrative leave, can help explain what's going on. He knows what to do, prolific blog commenter that he is.
We've e-mailed him and tried to reach him through the Sheriff's Office. Lisa Allen, the sheriff's spokeswoman, says she can't help us. Nor will the office comment, she says, about the findings in the SCA report about Fox. Pending matter, yada-yada.
Of course, he knows we'd take anything he says with a block of salt. After all, the guy lies in an e-mail to his own mother about the SCA case, the investigation uncovered.
In a January 17, 2009 e-mail to his mom Nancy Fox entitled "my arugument (sic)," the sheriff's captain writes that he will prove to the judge in his civil elections case that none of the SCA donors "are employees of MCSO, associated with the Arpaio [or any other] campaign, corporations, labor groups or any other corruptive influence" or are "associated with Arpaio in any way."
Yet Fox knew the account was pulling money from multiple high-ranking MCSO employees, including his bosses, Larry Black and Chief Deputy David Hendershott, as would later be exposed. Corporate checks were among those he deposited in the SCA bank account; one contained the message: "Vote for Sheriff Joe Arpaio."
The money, $105,000 in total, was filtered through the state Arizona Republican party and used to create sleazy TV ads targeting Arpaio's opponent, Democrat Dan Saban, and the opponent of former County Attorney Andrew Thomas.
Fox's hard-drive also contained material from a court case involving Dan Saban, and a "timeline referencing Dan Saban and the allegations involving Ruby Norman." Remember her? She's Saban's adoptive mother, who claims Saban raped her when he was 15. The decades-old case was mentioned in the Saban attack ad, as was Saban's admission in court that he'd once masturbated while on duty.
Here's a screen-shot of the timeline found on Fox's hard drive:
Arpaio, meanwhile, continues to hide behind the idea that he knew nothing about any of this.
