State Senate President Russell Pearce's son Joshua Trent Pearce was arrested February 9 by the Mesa Police Department on outstanding warrants issued by the Maricopa County Superior Court. Currently he's cooling his heels in Durango Jail.
The thirty year-old unemployed roofer had a revocation hearing scheduled for today, but it's been rescheduled to March 9 according to the court. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, where Russell Pearce's son Sean works as a sheriff's deputy, provided the new mug shot above.
Mesa Police Department spokesman Ed Wessing issued the following statement to me via e-mail:
"The Mesa PD Warrant Unit responded to the home at 10861 E. Diamond with Adult Probation on the morning of Feb. 9th. We were contacted by Adult Probation because Joshua Pearce had a warrant for a probation violation with a $2500 bond attached. Additionally, he was found to have a Failure to Appear Warrant (Maricopa County Superior Court) on 2 CTS of AGG DUI with a $5000 bond attached. He was taken into custody without incident and booked into the Maricopa County Jail."
A couple of weeks ago, I reported on the bench warrant issued for Josh's failure to appear. This, for a hearing in his aggravated DUI case, which dates to 2006. Back then, Pearce was nabbed by Mesa PD, driving high on pot and other drugs, with his girlfriend (now wife) Samantha and their five day-old son in the car.
Josh, who has had numerous run-ins with the Mesa cops as a juvenile and as an adult, admitted to one officer that he liked to "wake and bake." He informed Mesa PD that he took Xanax for panic attacks. He later tested positive for THC, Oxycodone, and Oxymorphone.
The son of the (now) most powerful politician in the state pleaded guilty to aggravated DUI in 2007 and received five years probation. The most recent probation report on file with the court alleges Josh has not complied with the terms of his probation.
As I've also reported, Josh was recently under investigation by the Mesa PD for allegations of child abuse in the case of his nine day-old baby girl, who suffered a skull fracture on December 10. Josh maintained to the cops that the infant fell out of a "bouncy chair," but doctors at Banner Desert Medical Center told police the injury couldn't have happened that way.
Mesa PD ultimately decided not to file charges on Josh, even though investigators did not believe he was being truthful in his account of the child's injury.
The Mesa police report on the investigation stated that Josh's children had been removed from the home and were in foster care.
Senate President Pearce has not responded to repeated requests for comment on his son Josh and Josh's ongoing problems with the law.
