Don Stapley
The high-powered defense attorney for Don Stapley vowed today that his client will be “more than vindicated” as the latest criminal accusations against the embattled Maricopa County supervisor shake out.
Attorney Paul Charlton called the morning arrest of Stapley by county sheriff’s deputies a “political hit job” and “the kind of thing you would see in a third-world dictatorship.”
Today was the second time in less than year deputies have arrested Stapley. The first time was in December when sheriff’s investigators accused him of 118 crimes for leaving out key information from financial disclosure forms he is required to file as an elected official. After a number of ongoing legal problems, however, that case was dropped on Friday.
So Charlton said it was “suspicious” that Stapley, a Republican from Mesa, would be arrested by the sheriff’s office just three days after its first case was dropped.
In a written statement today, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the new case is “unrelated” to the other one, and implied that the timing was coincidental.
That didn’t sit well with Charlton. “They’re grasping at straws here,” he said.
This time around, Stapley is accused of 100 crimes, most of which are related to various types of fraud. The sheriff’s office said, for instance, the elected supervisor funneled campaign money into his personal bank accounts. He has not yet been charged with the crimes and was released from jail this afternoon without having to post bail.
Formerly the highest-ranking federal prosecutor in Arizona, Charlton was hired by Stapley last year to help clear him of the previous charges.
Charlton criticized the fact that the sheriff’s office executed the newest investigation and arrest on its own — without getting the OK from a prosecutor, judge or grand jury in advance. While Charlton acknowledged such tactics are well within the rights of the sheriff’s office, he said it is unusual for a white collar cases.
This kind of arrest, where an agency develops probable cause to make the bust on its own, is generally reserved for cases where, say, investigators come across someone holding a knife over a bloody corpse. They are usually the easiest arrests to make up-front, but require a lot more legal work on the back end.
Charlton said it may be a sign the case is weak and the sheriff’s office was afraid a prosecutor or judge would shut it down.
Now, the sheriff’s office will have to find a prosecutor willing to take the case. But doing that might be tricky.
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said earlier this year his office would not handle any more cases involving the Board of Supervisors. Too many of the county’s elected leaders were embroiled in lawsuits, investigations and turf wars, and Thomas determined it would be a conflict for the office to prosecute the board members.
Thomas said at the time that any future cases would be referred to the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office in Prescott. But as of this afternoon, attorneys with that agency said they had not received any new cases against Stapley.
Finally, the other possible prosecutor of the case would be the state Attorney General’s Office, but that too is unlikely. The AG currently has a criminal investigation going into high-ranking members of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, and the agency generally defers any work involving the sheriff to other prosecutors.
Charlton said he does not know whether anyone will ultimately take the case. “I suppose we have to see whether and if any prosecutor is going to pick it up or if these charges are going to die under their own weight.”