Sheriff Arpaio's Office Wants E-mails and Other Public Records From 36 County Officials -- UPDATED

By Ray Stern Wed., Feb. 4 2009 at 4:35 PM

Categories: News

Yvonne Wingett, who writes the Political Insider column for the Arizona Republic, reports this afternoon that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office is requesting e-mails and other public records from all five county supervisors and 31 county employees under the state's public records law.

Fulton Brock, one of five county supervisors

The meaning of the records request isn't clear, but the tactic has been used several times by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's over the past year or so -- with no success. Lisa Allen, Arpaio's spokeswoman, told Wingett the request stems from a criminal investigation. If you'll recall, the sheriff's office said the request of Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon's e-mails was for an internal investigation, and we're not sure if a legitimate reason has ever been offered for the request for documents from Superior Court members.

UPDATE: We obtained the MCSO records request from the county, which asks for e-mails, calendars and phone records.
Click here to read it. Below, see the names of the officials who the Sheriff's Office is targeting.

Arpaio's use of the state's public records law to seek archived e-mails from government officials is heavy with hypocrisy, as we pointed out in a Tuesday blog post. Neither Arpaio nor his top aide, Dave Hendershott, even use e-mail. You can imagine why.

In 2007, the office refused to turn over e-mails from public information officer Doug Matteson, claiming the e-mails the deputy receives and the ones he sends are deleted "permanently" as soon as he acts on them. And, as has been well-documented, the sheriff's office has a poor history of responding promptly to requests for public records.

Maybe the sheriff's office is turning over a new leaf, and will soon begin satisfying public records requests as quickly and thoroughly as it expects others to do the same. We'll let our readers know how that works out.

Tags:

e-mails, maricopa county, public records, sheriff joe arpaio

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Is "Richard Duarte" possibly "Richard de Uriarte"? Not only can they not use e-mail, but they can't be bothered to spell a target's name correctly in their enemies list.
He doesn't go after the ones he loves but the one who are not afraid to stand up to him. This looks like we (responsible voters need to put in a request to have his records, the emails of his department, and corresponses from the sheriff dept to the general public so we can publish a book of his true dealings of his office.
To cite a good candidate worthy of arpaio`s email investigation. Arpaio needs to look into the emails forwarded by Russell Pearce from his white supremacists conections. Forwarding emails from dangerous anti-government extremists is worthy of being investigated! Besides, there was always bad blood between ape-oh and turd reich wannabe Russell Pearce.
What happened with the leases at the Wells Fargo Bank Building? Taxpayers cannot afford to have a sheriff and county attorney in luxury offices of a bank building. Where are those records? Who made those decisions to waste our taxpayer dollars on luxury leases? Still waiting for answers....
If they deliver, I can only hope the email I've sent to Andy Kunasek, and not received any response, becomes public. I would love to see his public response to his non-response. I happen to live in his district, unfortunately. I'm somewhat surprised to see Max Wilson on the list. I am getting the impression he's sleeping with arpaio. Kinda like band camp...
Wow. "36 county officials"? I wonder if the extremists are on that list too? I'm talking about wing-nuts such as that neo-nazi asskisser Russell Pearce or the next "Don Stapley" Kunasek over at BOS et al. Or how about Andrew Thomas??? He's a "county official" is he not?
lol, we wont hold our breath though...i think the Detroit Lions have a better chance at making the next 3 superbowls than arpaios minions responding to record requests in the same time frame they expect to recieve one....or at all for that matter..hey joe, lets start with your numerous investments your hiding from the tax payers, along with the jail commissary money, Honduras escapades, and so on..then you can talk about record requests...