Then, karma caught up. Arpaio was held in criminal contempt by a federal judge and booted from office by voters. And in 2012, Thomas was disbarred by a disciplinary panel of the Arizona Supreme Court, effectively ending his political career. And while Sheriff Joe is still looking rather lifelike at 92, Thomas seemed to fall off the face of the planet.
The last anyone in Arizona heard of Thomas, he was finishing fifth in a six-way Republican primary for governor. For a while, he wrote scholarly pieces for an obscure right-wing think tank in Washington, D.C., but then seemed to vanish like Sauron's evil spirit after the fall of Barad-dûr.
But it seems the Harvard Law grad hasn’t disappeared at all. Instead, like fellow Arpaio associate Mark Goldman, the now-58-year-old Thomas has embarked upon a career in the arts. Specifically, he has taken up filmmaking, directing and producing Christian movies in Texas.
Thomas’ production company is called Summerbrook Studios. The studio is based in Dallas and was established to create "powerful, uplifting films to entertain and inspire,” according to its website. Thomas did not reply to emails requesting an interview.
Summerbrook's first offering was 2022's “Lake Lavon,” which takes its title from a nearby reservoir that supplies water to residents of North Texas. Written, directed and produced by Thomas, the 95-minute “rom-com” bills itself as a tale about "a young couple who find faith and each other as the world tries to keep them apart." It can be rented for $1.99 on Amazon.
Phoenix New Times paid the fee and lost a bit more than $1.99. “When Harry Met Sally” it is not, though Summerbrook's site claims the film was "a number-one hit on the Christian Channel.” Extremely light on the "com” and with a mere tissue of plot, the flick involves an on-again, off-again romance between two 20-somethings in the Dallas area.
Meet Mr. Nine
Avery Clark is a Pollyanna-ish ray of sunshine who works at a coffee shop while living at home with her mom and her mom's creepy boyfriend. At an auto repair shop, she meets Bob Mills, a responsible young man with a career as an engineer and a moody disposition.After a date of frisbee golf and cheesesteaks, Bob invites Avery to meet his aunt and uncle. It turns out the aunt, who’s a big Christian, has reservations, courtesy of a message from the Holy Spirit.
“The enemy is just trying to grab hold of her,” she warns Bob. She doesn’t appear to mean the Russians.
Satan's intervention takes the form of a drunken game of Twister, with Bob finding Avery astraddle another gal's man. Though an innocent misunderstanding, Bob breaks it off with a tearful Avery. But fear not! They reconnect during a chance meeting at a burger joint where Avery has a new job.
"I have a feeling God sent me to this restaurant so I could see you again," Bob tells her.
Indeed, true love will not be thwarted. Not even by Avery’s mom's grizzled boyfriend, Ray, who gets handsy with Avery in a classic rom-com set-up. Bob shows up on her doorstep and saves her, threatening Ray with a fanny pack that supposedly holds an unseen 9 mm pistol.
“Avery, go on, get your stuff,” Bob says. “We’ll keep ol’ Leroy here company.”
“The name is Ray,” Ray says.
“You look like a Leroy.”
“The name is Ray.”
Bob taps his fanny pack. “Mr. Nine says Leroy.”
Spoiler alert: Bob asks Avery to marry him at Lake Lavon, and the film ends with them getting hitched at a nearby justice of the peace.
Fans of Christian filmmaking may encounter "Mr. Nine" again. Thomas also has a Substack column and podcast dubbed "Resurgence," wherein he promises that a second film is on the way.
In fact, Summerbrook Studios has had subsequent casting calls for other films on the platform Backstage.com, the online version of the venerable trade mag. “A Texas Family” is described as the story of a wealthy father and the family drama that ensues as he writes his will. Another, “Teaching Life,” is the tale of a teacher "who teaches a class of rebellious high-school students a lesson they'll never forget."
In a 2023 post on Substack, ex-county attorney Andrew Thomas blamed "leftist crocodiles" for his downfall.
Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
The more things change …
Christian filmmaking seems to be good for Thomas, who in Facebook photos with “Lake Lavon” cast members looks a lot more relaxed than in his days as a prosecutor. What hasn't changed, to judge by the columns in "Resurgence," is Thomas' Manichean view of politics or his aggrievement over his 2012 disbarment.On his Substack, Thomas remains a paleoconservative at heart — anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant and deeply paternalistic. The world is subdivided into evil liberals, righteous right-wingers and traitorous RINOs.
In his first column for "Resurgence" in February 2023, more than a decade after his disbarment, he claims he "stopped illegal immigration into Arizona," which would be news to the U.S. Border Patrol. Granted, Thomas supported a host of anti-immigration policies, including the infamous Senate Bill 1070 and Arpaio's sweeps of Hispanic communities. Thomas even prosecuted those here illegally for "self-smuggling" themselves into the country, a practice federal courts found to be unconstitutional.
But it wasn't Thomas' anti-immigrant stance that got him disbarred. That happened as a result of his alliance with Arpaio and their fetish for ginning up charges against their critics and enemies, including superior court judges and members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
The panel that disbarred Thomas found that he and his underlings brought false bribery charges against the presiding judge of the Maricopa County criminal court and indicted one supervisor on dozens of counts past the statute of limitations. It also faulted him for filing a federal RICO case against four judges and the entire Board of Supervisors that was "devoid of any legal or factual basis."
A full accounting of Thomas' many misdeeds in office could fill a small library. Many were not subject to the bar's sanctions. That includes the 2007 illegal arrests of New Times' former owners, who had revealed the existence of a secret grand jury impaneled to exact revenge for the paper's unflattering coverage of Arpaio.
A lawsuit resulting from that debacle cost taxpayers $3.75 million to settle. The judges and county leaders targeted by Thomas also sued, with settlements and legal fees exceeding $44 million. Not that Thomas feels he did anything wrong. After his disbarment, he held an impromptu rally in Phoenix where he declared himself the victim of a "witch hunt" and compared himself to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
In his Substack debut nearly 12 years later, Thomas blamed his fall on unnamed "leftist crocodiles" who took him down because he was a "threat to the regime." He wrote that the panel's "evil and plainly dishonest court ruling" destroyed "a shining legal career and an unprecedented law enforcement record."
Which goes to prove the adage: "You can tell a man from Harvard, but you can't tell him much."
With the re-election of Donald Trump, of whom Thomas is definitely a fan, Thomas has declared that his Substack need not dwell on politics. He says will commit himself to cultural issues instead. His latest column is a nostalgic rumination on stop-motion TV classics of yore like “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “The Little Drummer Boy.”
A softer, kinder Andrew Thomas may be in the making yet.
