Heat City

Dennis Burke

Dennis Burke, the top federal prosecutor in Arizona, reportedly will be named Monday to an elite panel that advises the Justice Department on issues like civil rights and gang violence.

Burke only became the US Attorney for Arizona a month ago, but his close ties to the White House make him an easy pick for the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. He will be on the panel with only a handful of other federal prosecutors, according to the Washington Post. The post will be in addition to his work in Arizona.

For five years, Burke was chief of staff to former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, now the Homeland Security secretary. He also worked at DHS earlier this year as a senior adviser to Napolitano.

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.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is accusing supervisor Don Stapley, a Republican from Mesa, of 100 new counts of fraud, which the office said are “unrelated” to the criminal charges dropped against him on Friday.

In a statement this afternoon, sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office revealed some details of the morning arrest of the embattled politician.

The statement said Stapley was arrested at about 9:30 a.m. in a county parking garage in downtown Phoenix. He “appeared agitated” and told deputies, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” as they moved in.

Don Stapley

Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley was arrested this morning by county sheriff’s deputies, just days after prosecutors dropped all charges against him in a criminal case that began last year.

The details of his arrest are unclear so far, but a Maricopa County Sheriff’s spokesman confirmed to Heat City at 10:07 a.m. that Stapley had been arrested again this morning. That spokesman, Detective Aaron Douglas, said in an email the office had “no further comment.”

The Mesa Republican was previously accused of leaving out key facts from the financial disclosure forms he is required to file as an elected official. The case had been investigated and built by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and later given to Yavapai County after local prosecutors determined it would be a conflict of interest to try one of their own county supervisors.

On Friday, the special prosecutor hired by Yavapai County to handle the case threw out the charges against Stapley because of some legal hurdles. However, special prosecutor Melvin Bowers left open the possibility of refiling it.