Rivals pounce on Rachel Mitchell’s plea deal with former prisons boss

Is Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, a rock-ribbed Republican, soft on crime?

That's how her Republican primary rival, Gina Godbehere, portrayed Mitchell during Godbehere's appearance Friday on J.D. Hayworth's radio show on KFNN 1510 AM. The candidate blasted Mitchell for what she called a "sweetheart deal" with Charles Ryan, former director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.

Godbehere, who lost a GOP primary challenge to Mitchell in 2022 by nearly 15 points, is Mitchell's only opponent in the Republican primary on July 30.

Godbehere swung hard at Mitchell from the right during her interview with Hayworth, a former U.S House member from Arizona. She said that a county attorney deal allowing Ryan to plead "no contest" in February to one count of disorderly conduct for a drunken barricade incident — during which he pointed his pistol at two police officers — was an example of what ailed the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.

"The problem with the county attorney is she's wedged between a Democratic governor and a Democratic attorney general, and she has liberal staff that are running that office," Godbehere said.

"When you allow sweetheart deals, like in the Ryan case or pointing the gun at police, and you're not holding offenders accountable, this is the problem we're having," she added later in the interview.

Godbehere, the former city prosecutor for Goodyear and a onetime MCAO bureau chief, claimed the Ryan case was part of a pattern in Mitchell's office. She criticized Mitchell for overusing diversion programs for defendants and sending too many cases to municipalities for prosecution.

Godbehere joins a chorus of people faulting the plea deal, including Tamika Wooten, the Democrat who will face the winner of the GOP primary for county attorney.

Wooten, a former chief prosecutor for Glendale, essentially agreed with Godbehere on Mitchell's treatment of Ryan.

"As a prosecutor, justice is supposed to be blind, and (Mitchell's) not making her decisions that way," Wooten told Phoenix New Times. "I think there was definitely some favoritism based on Ryan's former position."

Drunk, barricaded and pointing a gun at police

It's not just politicians crying foul. In letters to Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Geoffrey Fish, who is overseeing Ryan's case, the Tempe police detectives who confronted Ryan on the night of Jan. 6, 2022, stated that they believed Ryan had committed aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. That's a class 3 felony with a mandatory prison sentence of five to 15 years.

That's a far more serious offense than disorderly conduct, a class 6 felony, which has a range of sentencing options, from probation to a maximum of two years in prison. Ryan initially was indicted on two class 6 felonies: disorderly conduct and misconduct with a weapon, with the latter dropped as part of the plea deal.

In the letters to the court, Tempe police detectives Michael McCasland and Fahed Salameh described how they responded to a 911 call from Ryan's wife. She told authorities that her husband had shot and wounded himself after consuming half a bottle of tequila.

During a three-hour standoff, Ryan, then 71, barricaded himself inside his home and refused orders to exit. Some 50 police officers responded and several nearby homes were evacuated. At one point, he opened a side door to his garage and appeared to point a black revolver at police officers, then retreated inside. On bodycam footage of the incident, McCasland and Salmeh can be heard ordering Ryan to drop the gun. Ryan does not respond or comply.

Both detectives make it clear that they believe Ryan pointed his gun at them, thereby committing aggravated assault under Arizona law.

"Mr. Ryan pointed the gun at myself and Det. Salameh for 15 seconds," McCasland wrote, explaining that the detectives did not realize it was a firearm until Ryan lowered his hand.

"It is not a good feeling knowing that a gun was pointed in your direction for 15 seconds," McCasland added.

McCasland said Arizona law allows peace officers to use deadly force to protect themselves or others when facing serious injury or death. He said police fired two beanbag rounds at Ryan during the confrontation. The Tempe SWAT team also was called to the scene.

According to McCasland, Ryan's wife told police that Ryan had been "drinking upward of half a bottle of tequila a night for the last two years." She said Ryan would drunkenly "patrol" their residence at night, paranoid that someone might be breaking into his home.

In his letter, Salameh wrote that Ryan was lucky to be alive. Salameh said that if he had recognized that Ryan had a gun earlier, he would have used lethal force. The detective also believed Ryan was receiving preferential treatment.

"If a gang member or generally any other person had acted the same way Mr. Ryan did on Jan. 6, 2022, they would be in prison with full sentencing," Salameh wrote in his letter. "Just because Mr. Ryan had never before committed a violent felony as he did that evening, it does not mean he is not capable of doing it again, and it certainly does not mean he should not be held responsible. Politics are very much involved in this situation."

Mitchell's office has given several reasons why it did not pursue aggravated assault charges against Ryan.

KJZZ 91.5 FM quoted Mitchell as saying that Ryan never pointed the gun directly at the officers. "He’s got a gun in his hand. He’s moving it around. And so at some point that it crosses over the officers," she said.

The Arizona Republic quoted Mitchell's top flack, Jeanine L'Ecuyer, as saying that the county attorney's office could not prove Ryan's  "intent" to place officers in harm's way, in part because Ryan was drunk and "unable to form intent."

L'Ecuyer told New Times that Ryan's inebriation "was one of several factors" in the decision not to charge him with aggravated assault. The plea deal was the best result for the case, she said.

"The short answer is that it was determined to be the best resolution of the case," L'Ecuyer said.

On Feb. 9, Fish approved the plea deal, sentencing Ryan to two years of supervised parole and ordering him to pay $8,500 in restitution to Tempe police.

‘Another black eye’ for Mitchell's office

The outcome in the Ryan case rankles many in the Valley.

Veteran Phoenix defense attorney Richard Gaxiola called the plea deal with Ryan "favoritism" and "another black eye" for Mitchell's office.

"If Charles Ryan were a young Latino or Black kid, he'd have been sent to prison, no issues whatsoever," Gaxiola said. "It doesn't matter whether the person was intoxicated or on the influence of narcotics. He did that voluntarily. It's not a defense in Arizona law."

Longtime progressive anti-prison activist Caroline Isaacs, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Just Communities Arizona, said the county attorney's double standard in Ryan's case was "glaring." Asked what would've happened if Ryan had been a person of color, she was unequivocal.

"He would be dead, because men of color do not get the benefit of the doubt by any law enforcement agency in this country," she said.

Isaacs was formerly program director for the Arizona branch of the American Friends Service Committee, which advocates for the rights of incarcerated people. She was a constant critic of Ryan, whose tenure at ADCRR was plagued by scandal, cruelty, inmate deaths and controversy.

Still, she showed empathy toward a man whose reign over the state's prison system she loathed.

"I have a lot of anger toward Charles Ryan for what he's done, heading up the prison system in this state," she said. "I've seen it harm a lot of people I care about. And if I am who I believe myself to be, I am going to argue on behalf of Charles Ryan's right to be seen as a human being in this system."

For her part, Mitchell, during her regular biweekly press conference on Thursday, defended the plea deal with Ryan. Her response to her critics, however, seemed tone deaf.

"People who are out there opining on this case, without having watched all the bodycams and read all of the police reports and listened to the interviews, are doing just that — they're opining," she said.