Hendershott Caves on Computer Password, Will Give It to County

Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott claimed last week that federal law prevented him turning over a password to a computer system used by law enforcement officials. Yesterday, without an act of Congress, Hendershott reportedly agreed to give the county computer administrators the password. The agreement means a judge won't be sending...

By Ray Stern

August 18, 2009

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Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott claimed last week that federal law prevented him turning over a password to a computer system used by law enforcement officials.

Yesterday, without an act of Congress, Hendershott reportedly agreed to give the county computer administrators the password. The agreement means a judge won't be sending Hendershott to jail for contempt of court, after all. We called that one.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office made the deal with Superior Court Judge Joseph Heilman only on the stipulation that the non-law-enforcement computer personnel who would have the password be monitored in their use of it, somehow. Yet the two IT guys who are getting the password -- which they've had for years, until the sheriff's takeover of the system last week -- have never been accused of planning anything nefarious with it.

Nobody trusts anybody anymore.

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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.