An Arizona ethics panel on Tuesday moved to disbar Maricopa County's former top prosecutor for failed corruption investigations he and America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff conducted targeting officials with whom they were having political and legal disputes.
The three-member disciplinary panel of the Arizona courts found that ex-County Attorney Andrew Thomas violated the professional rules of conduct for lawyers in bringing criminal charges against two county officials and a judge in December 2009.
All three cases were dismissed after a judge ruled that Thomas prosecuted one of the officials for political gain and had a conflict of interest in pressing the case. Other county officials and judges who were at odds with Thomas and his top ally, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in disputes also were investigated by the pair, but weren't charged with crimes.
Lawyers pressing the case against Thomas said officials, judges and attorneys who crossed Thomas and Arpaio in disputes were often targeted for investigations.
Thomas and Arpaio contended they were trying to root out corruption in county government, while the targets of the prosecutions said the cases were trumped up.
The decision marked the first official comment by the state's legal establishment on the validity of the investigations.
Arpaio does not face any punishments in the disciplinary case, but investigations of county officials and judges by the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad took center stage at hearings in the Thomas case.
Separate from the attorney disciplinary case, a federal grand jury also has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009 and is specifically examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad.
At Thomas' disciplinary hearing, the sheriff testified in September that he didn't follow the investigations closely and farmed out those cases to his then-top assistant. The former Arpaio aide had testified earlier that some allegations contained in the charges against the judge weren't in fact crimes.
Thomas was accused of bringing criminal cases against County Supervisors Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox to embarrass them and knowingly filing false bribery and obstruction of justice charges against then-Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe.
The panel ruled against Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon, one of his former deputy prosecutors, on the charges. Aubuchon also will be disbarred.
"Justice has been served for Maricopa County," Wilcox said.
The ethics board also found that Thomas and Aubuchon conspired with Arpaio and his former top aide, David Hendershott, to intimidate the judge. Still, the panel declined to sanction Thomas and Aubuchon on that violation.
Thomas and Aubuchon have 10 days to file an appeal with the state Supreme Court.
Donahoe was charged with bribery after the judge disqualified Thomas' office from its investigation into a construction of a court building. The judge was about to hold a hearing on Thomas' request to appoint special prosecutors to handle investigations against the officials, but that hearing was called off after the charges were filed against the judge.
Thomas said the decision to charge the judge had nothing to do with the decisions the judge issued against his office.
During his testimony, Thomas defended the investigations and said one of his aides had warned that charging Stapley would hurt him politically, but he brought the charges against the county supervisor because it was the right thing to do.
Stapley was accused, among other things, of getting mortgage loans under fraudulent pretenses. Wilcox was accused of voting on contracts involving a group that had given her loans and never filing conflict-of-interest statements.
Thomas, a Harvard Law School graduate, served as the county's top prosecutor from more than five years before resigning in April 2010 to run an unsuccessful campaign for state attorney general.
Thomas was known for confronting illegal immigration, prosecuting metro Phoenix's Baseline Killer and Serial Shooter cases and pursuing criminal cases against county officials.
Cactus Wren posted at 11:41 am on Wed, Apr 11, 2012.
Wow. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of what's called in the news industry "burying the lede". For an instance of good newswriting -- putting the important information where it belongs, at the beginning of the story -- check out yesterday's "Raw Story" (rawstory dot com) account. In fact, Raw Story's headline is better written than this entire article, reading as it does "Sheriff Joe Arpaio's top lawyer disbarred, facing criminal charges".
SB posted at 4:29 pm on Tue, Apr 10, 2012.
Yep PeacefulCat, you’re definitely right about the judges. In fact the corrupt judges should be the top priority because they wield the most power. But because of that power and because of constituents and governing bodies often covering for them, bringing a corrupt judge to justice will practically always prove to be an epic battle. For instance an undeniably criminally-corrupt Florida judge (and former prosecutor) by the name of David P. Kreider has been under fire for months. The judge and his co-conspirators are in serious trouble and during recent months desperate measures have been taken by the judge and various parties allied with him. As evidence of how serious this battle for justice has been I’ll inform you that subsequent to this battle the Chief Judge has resigned from her post. It was announced yesterday (04/09/2012) that Martha Lott had resigned from her post as Chief Judge of Florida’s 8th Judicial Circuit. She has been replaced by Robert Roundtree Jr. For more information take a look at the following url:
http://www.complaints.com/2012/march/14/Corrupt_Judge_David_P._Kreider_now_taints_the_ele_264712.htm
For the record,everything stated here is 100% true and corroborated by two reports and extensive irrefutable evidence that is in the possession of agencies. Some of those agencies are within Florida’s 8th Judicial Circuit (within the circuit included in those entities that are in possession of the aforementioned reports and evidence are the Chief Judge’s office and the State Attorney’s Office Chief Investigator Spencer Mann).
Juggernaut8000 posted at 2:38 pm on Tue, Apr 10, 2012.
'Cat,
You are very correct. Thomas is a corrupt, lying weasel and I am glad to see him disbarred.
PeacefulCat posted at 1:39 pm on Tue, Apr 10, 2012.
One down and how many more to go???? Including corrupt judges!
This should have happened 23 years ago. Think of all the damage : (
Cerulean posted at 10:42 am on Tue, Apr 10, 2012.
“Thomas and Arpaio contended they were trying to root out corruption in county government,”
Well, well that is exactly what this hearing did; it got rid of two more pieces of the corruption in government. Good-bye Andrew Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon, Mr. Arpaio should be next!