Deputy Steve Carpenter Resigns in Fallout Over Tim Abrahamson North Dakota Assault Case; UPDATED w/MCSO Response

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Tim Abrahamson, former Maricopa County Sheriff's Office deputy.
Steve Carpenter has resigned as a deputy from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office following accusations that he helped another deputy in a plan to assault a North Dakota man.

No allegation ever surfaced that Carpenter helped former deputy Tim Abrahamson pummel West Fargo resident Jason Swart, who'd had an affair with Abrahamson's wife a year before the September 2012 beating that cost Swart part of an ear. Still, Carpenter drove the 1,600 miles to West Fargo with Abrahamson and may have known what his buddy was going to do.

Abrahamson pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of aggravated assault and faces a June 27 sentencing hearing in which he could get up to five years in prison.

See also: Tim Abrahamson, Former Maricopa Deputy, Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Wife's Lover in North Dakota; Faces Up To Five Years in Prison


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Tim Abrahamson, Former Maricopa Deputy, Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Wife's Lover in North Dakota; Faces Up To Five Years in Prison

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Tim Abrahamson, former deputy for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, pleaded guilty today in Cass County, North Dakota to beating up his wife's lover.
Tim Abrahamson, a former Maricopa County Sheriff's Office deputy, pleaded guilty today to assaulting his wife's lover in North Dakota.

He faces up to five years in prison when he's sentenced on June 27th, says Cass County prosecutor Tristan Van de Streek.

Meanwhile, Deputy Steve Carpenter, Abrahamson's apparent accomplice in the vicious attack that left the victim missing part of an ear, may be out of a job, according to Van de Streek. The Maricopa Sheriff's Office has not yet replied to a request we made this afternoon for Carpenter's employment status.

See also: Tim Abrahamson, Ex-Deputy Accused of N.D. Assault, Faces Trial; Deputy Steve Carpenter on Paid Leave Despite Role in Alleged Attack

See also: Deputy Tim Abrahamson, Accused Attacker of Man Who Cuckolded Him, was Key Figure in Sheriff Arpaio's Disgraced Anti-Corruption Team

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Lisa Allen, Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Longtime Spokeswoman, Forgets Herself in AZ Republic Letter to Editor

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Image: Ray Stern
Lisa Allen wonders in a Saturday letter to the editor why people criticize Sheriff Arpaio's crime sweeps, but not those of Phoenix police. She answered her own question in 2009.
Lisa Allen certainly knows the answer to the question she posed in a letter to the editor published in Saturday's Arizona Republic.

Click here to read Lisa Allen's letter to the editor.

In the letter, the longtime spokeswoman for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio congratulates the Phoenix Police Department for a "job well done" in a recent crime sweep that netted 180 arrests, then notes that the "Arizona Republic and others were quick to criticize" the sheriff's past crime sweeps, "saying the sheriff only does these operations to arrest illegal aliens."

She claims that the Arpaio and PPD sweeps were "no different in application and goal..." then ponders, "So, why does one agency get credit and the other condemnation?"

Yet as a secret recording makes clear, Allen believed in July of 2009 that a crime sweep Arpaio had ordered for the Chandler area at the time would invite criticism, due to rising public discourse and concern about racial profiling.

See also: Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Secretly Recorded '09 Staff Meeting -- Hear It Here


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Tim Abrahamson, Ex-Deputy From Arpaio's Discredited Anti-Corruption Team, Set to Plead Guilty in North Dakota Assault Case

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Tim Abrahamson, former deputy for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, is set to plead guilty to an aggravated assault charge on May 6 in North Dakota.
Former Maricopa County Sheriff's Office deputy Tim Abrahamson is set to plead guilty in North Dakota for his alleged, pre-planned attack on his wife's ex-lover.

Meanwhile, we're waiting to find out the current duty status of Abrahamson's buddy, Steve Carpenter, who drove to North Dakota and apparently waited in a rented sedan while Abrahamson beat the victim severely.

Jason Swart of West Fargo, who'd had an affair with Abrahamson's wife, lost part of an ear in the cowardly attack.

See also: Tim Abrahamson, Ex-Deputy Accused of N.D. Assault, Faces Trial; Deputy Steve Carpenter on Paid Leave Despite Role in Alleged Attack

See also: Deputy Tim Abrahamson, Accused Attacker of Man Who Cuckolded Him, was Key Figure in Sheriff Arpaio's Disgraced Anti-Corruption Team

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Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu's Office Aware Ex-Deputy Richard "Hank" Mueller Had "Multiple Red Flag Issues" but Hired Him Anyway

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Richard Hank Mueller (left) and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.
Months after a drunken brawl outside of a Tempe bar, former Pinal County Sheriff's Deputy Richard "Hank" Mueller is expected to face a judge for a non-jury trial at 1:30 on May 6.

Mueller's attorney has delayed his clients day reckoning at Tempe Municipal Court several times with motions, but at last check, it's still on for May.

The former deputy was slapped only with a disorderly conduct charge -- and it seems like a lucky break for Mueller.

See also: Babeu's "Elite" Staff Overcomes Bad Behavior with Loyalty

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Exclusive: MCSO Sex Crimes Internal Investigation Reports Online

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Image: Jamie Peachey
Sheriff Joe Arpaio at a news conference in December 2011 about the sex-crimes investigation debacle.

Portions of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office's 10,000-page sex-crimes internal investigation are now available online following a New Times records request.

When the massive report was released to the news media and public on February 8, the agency at first refused New Times' request to put it on a CD. Instead, the office insisted that reporters could either come to MCSO and electronically scan in the paper copy -- or pay the standard rate of 50 cents a page for the report, for a total of $5,000.

New Times pressed the issue, reminding the agency that, under a state Supreme Court ruling on Arizona's public record's law, electronic public records possessed by governmental agencies must release them in electronic format, if so requested.

We're happy to report that MCSO relented, to an extent, and released the documents linked below.

See also: Victims Wonder Why Arpaio Let Sex-Abuse Cases Languish

See also: Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Sex-Crime Scandal After Five Years: No One Disciplined, Report Still Unfinished


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Tim Abrahamson, Ex-Deputy Accused of N.D. Assault, Faces Trial; Deputy Steve Carpenter on Paid Leave Despite Role in Alleged Attack

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Timothy Abrahamson, former Maricopa County Sheriff's Office deputy, is accused of driving 10 hours to North Dakota with another deputy and assaulting Abrahamson's wife's ex-lover.

Timothy Abrahamson, the former Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy accused of driving to North Dakota in September and assaulting his wife's ex-lover, faces a March 12 trial date in Fargo.

Abrahamson, who played a key role in some of the discredited anti-corruption investigations conducted by Sheriff Arpaio's office, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated assault.

Police believe that Abrahamson planned his attack carefully after learning that his wife had cheated on him the previous year with Jason Swart, an ex-boyfriend from North Dakota. He rented a car and drove 10 hours to West Fargo with another Maricopa deputy, Steve Carpenter, records show.

Carpenter was allegedly in the car and apparently watched as his buddy beat up Swart.


See also: Deputy Steven Carpenter Put Back on Street by Sheriff's Office Until Nov. 8 Despite Role in North Dakota Assault Case; Abrahamson Posts Bond

See also: Deputy Tim Abrahamson, Accused Attacker of Man Who Cuckolded Him, was Key Figure in Sheriff Arpaio's Disgraced Anti-Corruption Team


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Watch Arpaio Squirm and Mix Up His Stories in Exclusive Video From 2012 Joel Fox Hearing

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If you're a close observer of the Maricopa County sheriff like we are, check out this hour-long video (in three parts) from his testimony in last year's Joel Fox termination appeal proceedings.

Arpaio squirms a little, appears to feign ignorance and mixes up his stories as he answers questions from a county official over the firing of Joel Fox, Arpaio's former captain who played patsy in what we affectionately call the "SCA scandal."

New Times obtained the video of Arpaio's testimony after a recent records request to the county.

See also: Arpaio, Learning Nothing From Hendershott Scandal, Delegates His Duties to Chief Deputy

Scroll down to see the videos.

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Arpaio, Learning Nothing From Hendershott Scandal, Delegates His Duties to Chief Deputy

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Arpaio let his former chief deputy do nearly everything related to the management of the sheriff's office, leading to a major scandal. He's doing the same thing with his new chief deputy.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio admitted in 2011 he was "duped" by his top aides.

He admitted in an embarrassing news conference the same year that he'd "made mistakes" in dealing with his former chief deputy, Dave Hendershott, whom he fired after evidence of corruption and mismanagement in his office surfaced. He testified last year (see video below) that he'd delegated operations and management of the sheriff's office to Hendershott, and that Hendershott wasn't even required to report to him on any matter.

Pinal County Sheriff Babeu, after completing an internal investigation of the multi-faceted scandal, told the news media that he believed Arpaio had no clue what was going on his own office, right under his nose.

We chatted with Arpaio yesterday while looking at records in his Wells Fargo building headquarters, and he told us that he has the same habit of delegating operations to his chief deputy, now Jerry Sheridan.

See also: Watch Arpaio Squirm and Mix Up His Stories in Exclusive Video From 2012 Joel Fox Hearing


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Joe Arpaio and Steven Seagal Off the Hook for Reality-Show Raid Lawsuit Brought by Man With Allegedly Dead Puppy

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Sheriff Joe Arpaio and posse member/action-movie actor Steven Seagal are off the hook in a lawsuit that claimed the Sheriff's Office had raided his house just for getting publicity for Seagal's reality show.

According to federal court paperwork, a judge dismissed the lawsuit after plaintiff Jesus Llovera -- who had previously gotten rid of his attorney in the case -- didn't respond to the judge's orders to further the case.

See also:
-Joe Arpaio and Steven Seagal Sued Over Cockfighting Raid/Reality Show Fodder
-Steven Seagal Resigned Rather Than Face IA Investigation

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