Heat City

Detention officer Adam Stoddard has called an 8:30 p.m. news conference on the plaza of Maricopa County’s main courthouse, his attorney tells Heat City. However, the attorney played coy when asked whether an apology is in the offing.

“You’ll have to come to find out,” said deputy county attorney Tom Liddy.

When Liddy was asked whether he stood by his previous statements that Stoddard would not apologize, he said: “Everything I’ve said to you is always correct. You know that.”

Judge Gary Donahoe

Judge Gary Donahoe is holding firm on his order that a Maricopa County detention officer must apologize by the end of the day today for taking an attorney’s confidential files or else face jail time.

Donahoe this afternoon denied a request by attorneys for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to push back the deadline. The ruling has not yet been made public, but a woman who answered the phone at Donahoe’s office as well as attorney for the sheriff both confirmed it.

Asked what the sheriff’s office planned to do next, deputy county attorney Tom Liddy said he was too busy to discuss it, but, he added, “Be on the lookout for something in a couple hours.”

Joe Arpaio

An all-out showdown could be in the works today over whether one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s officers will apologize for taking an attorney’s confidential files.

It all goes back to an Oct. 19 incident in which Maricopa County detention officer Adam Stoddard was caught on a courtroom security video swiping a document from the files of a defense attorney while her back was turned.

Superior Court Judget Gary Donahoe has since ordered the detention officer to hold a news conference to apologize for taking the document. If he refuses to do so by the deadline – set for today – Donahoe said he would throw the officer in jail for contempt of court.

On Sunday, an attorney for the sheriff’s office told Heat City there is still no apology in the works today. But deputy county attorney Tom Liddy also said Arpaio’s office is considering “an announcement” instead.

He declined to say what the announcement might be, but added: “There are over a thousand possibilities.”

“It should not be read by you or anyone else that he’s going to apologize,” Liddy said.

Joe Arpaio | Photo by Evan Wyloge

Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Wednesday it will be a cold day in Maricopa County before one of his officers apologizes for taking an attorney’s confidential files.

He was responding to Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe, who on Tuesday ordered a county detention officer to apologize for a bizarre incident in which he was caught on a courtroom security video sneaking a confidential document from a defense attorney’s file.

Donahoe ordered officer Adam Stoddard to hold a press conference before Dec. 1 to apologize to the attorney or else face jail time.

“Superior Court judges do not order my officers to hold press conferences,” Arpaio said in a news release. “I decide who holds press conferences and when they are held.”

Detention officer Adam Stoddard is shown on courtroom videotape taking a document from a defense attorney’s file.

If he doesn’t make a grand public apology to a defense attorney soon, a Maricopa County detention officer could find himself inside a jail cell rather than tending them.

A Maricopa County judge on Tuesday ordered detention officer Adam Stoddard to hold a news conference and publicly apologize for swiping a document from a defense attorney’s file behind her back last month in an incident caught on courtroom videotape. If the Maricopa County Sheriff’s officer refuses or the defense attorney decides the apology is not “sufficient,” Judge Gary Donahoe’s ruling said he would throw Stoddard in jail.

Donahoe’s ruling held Stoddard in contempt for the Oct. 19 incident in which he could be seen on a courtroom security video sneaking up behind attorney Joanne Cuccia in the middle of a hearing and taking a document from her file.

Judge Gary Donahoe

Maricopa County Judge Gary Donahoe looked out on a courtroom divided cleanly in half on Tuesday, all the way back through the gallery. On one side was a packed batch of local defense attorneys. On the other, a battery of sheriff’s deputies, each donning a brown uniform and badge.

Donahoe scanned the courtroom and shrugged. “There is a line here that I have to balance,” he said. Then he asked the two sides what he should do.

Donahoe has been overseeing a rather bizarre case in recent weeks surrounding what a sheriff’s employee did to a defense attorney on Oct. 19 in full view of courtroom security cameras.

The employee, detention officer Adam Stoddard, was caught on tape sneaking behind the back of defense attorney Joanne Cuccia and taking a document from her files while she was speaking in court that day.