Lisa Aubuchon doesn't want to work on the appeal to ger her job as prosecutor back -- not when she's close to getting disbarred.

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Lisa Aubuchon is apparently finding it hard to think positive as her likely disbarment, and that of her former boss, Andrew Thomas, approaches.

Aubuchon has been fighting to get back her job as a prosecutor for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office since she was fired in September 2010 for helping Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Thomas ream their political enemies with bogus charges. Her first appeal of her firing to the Maricopa County Employee Merit Commission System was shot down in flames in March of last year. Then, Hearing Officer Harold Merkow called her a corrupt "dervish" whose damage to the justice system is "inestimable."

The ethics-challenged former prosecutor appealed that ruling to Superior Court, in which the case is still pending.

But it's now been delayed by Aubuchon -- whose motion to stay the proceedings was granted last month by a judge.

One of our eagle-eyed readers sent us the judge's order granting her motion, noting that it implies a lack of faith in the idea that she'll be lawyer much longer.

Aubuchon, like Thomas and another of Thomas' former flunkies, Rachel Alexander, are the subjects of a State Bar of Arizona disciplinary proceeding that is soon coming to an end.

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Andrew Thomas' arguments are "absurd," says the State Bar of Arizona's independent counsel.

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Independent lawyers for the State Bar of Arizona again recommend disbarment for former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, referring to his arguments with words like "absurd."

Thomas' former sidekick, Lisa Aubuchon, should also be stripped of her law license, says the 37-page reply (see below) to the former prosecutors' closing argument. The report also recommends that Rachel Alexander, another former deputy county attorney tied to the scandal, should have her license suspended.

This is the last of the three closing arguments, and a decision by the State Bar's disciplinary panel is expected within 30 days.

The independent bar counsel team that includes John Gleason and James Sudler paints a damning picture of the abuse of power. The latest filing ought to dispel any wisp of doubt that Thomas, Aubuchon and Alexander did something wrong.

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Andrew Thomas

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Despite starting with a great quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the closing argument released today in the discipline case against former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas isn't a fun read.

The 91-page document filed with the Arizona State Bar, which brought the case against Thomas, trots out the same, tired excuses Thomas has given from the start about how he took legal action against several judges, county officials and local lawyers. Instead of convincing factual accounts of the results of Thomas' inexplicable thought processes, the Bar's disciplinary panel (and now, the public,) gets a lot of questions, cliches and unsupported assertions.

For instance, take a look at pages 75 and 76, which concern the allegation that Thomas improperly, and without any evidence, charged a sitting judge with bribery, obstruction of justice and hindering a prosecution.

Thomas says he relied on two of his senior prosecutors in deciding to move forward with a direct complaint against the now-retired judge, Gary Donahoe. One of those prosecutors, Barbara Marshall, testified that she wasn't serious when she made a comment about charging the judge. Thomas took her seriously because the comment was "undeniably unfunny," the document states. This is logic?

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Image: Court pool photo

Don Wilson, Andrew Thomas' lawyer, says no reasonable person would think Thomas could ever again hold public office.

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Don Wilson, Andrew Thomas' attorney in the former Maricopa County Attorney's disciplinary proceedings, disses Sheriff Joe Arpaio's memory and his client's political future in a new interview.

We found Wilson's Tuesday interview with KJZZ quite comical, in places, (after learning about it from one of our sharp readers, that is).

Thomas' lawyer, in answer to why his client should continue to hold a law license, responds that the former prosecutor couldn't abuse his power because he no longer holds office -- "and I think any reasonable person assumes he never will again."

Bah-bam!

Wilson seems to acknowledge that even his best efforts during the fall State Bar disciplinary proceedings couldn't make Thomas look good enough to be elected to an HOA board.

But Wilson gets serious when talk turns to Arpaio's performance on the witness stand at the proceedings.

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Andrew Thomas, former county attorney, must be disbarred to restore public trust, says the Arizona State Bar's independent counsel.

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Former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his former underling Lisa Aubuchon must be disbarred in order to restore public trust in the legal system, the State Bar's investigating lawyer has found.

The opinion comes in two documents filed today with the state Supreme Court: A closing argument and "finding of fact and conclusions of law." It's not much a surprise that Arizona State Bar Independent Counsel John Gleason would recommend disbarment, since he did so long before the lengthy disciplinary hearings that ended early last month.

What's new here is the forceful and succinct characterization of the evidence that Thomas and Aubuchon were dirty players. Read the documents below.

Gleason also suggested to the State Bar's disciplinary hearing panel that the law license of former deputy county attorney Rachel Alexander be suspended for three months for her more minor, but still-serious role in a now-discredited attack on county officials.

After weeks of testimony, Gleason found nothing to change his original opinion of the former prosecutors' actions. If Thomas and Aubuchon had been accused only of filing bogus charges against a sitting judge, that alone would have merited disbarment, the bar counsel found.

But they did far more than that.

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Eileen GilBride, Sheriff Arpaio's lawyer, reacts to criticism by Chief Judge Kozinski that she had come to court unprepared.

​Questions asked by a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in yesterday's hearing of the New Times vs. Sheriff Arpaio false- arrest lawsuit seemed to lean toward the newspaper's position.

 

Watch the hearing yourself and let us know if you agree. The Ninth published the hearing video this afternoon (scroll down to see it), and we've prepared a quick guide to some of the highlights. You can also check out the story published yesterday by the SF Weekly's Peter Jamison, who attended the hearing.

If you didn't already know, New Times is suing Arpaio, former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and lawyer Dennis Wilenchik over the 2007 nighttime arrests of Village Voice Media Executive Editor Michael Lacey and VVM CEO Jim Larkin, and the nefarious plot that preceded those arrests.

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Image: Channel 12 News screen shot

Loretta Barkell, seen here in a May interview with Channel 12 News, was convinced her superiors had bugged her office, newly released records show.

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Newly released records show a top Arpaio official was convinced her superiors had bugged her office.

County observers may recall that Arpaio and his go-to guy, former Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott, wanted County Supervisor Andy Kunasek prosecuted for sweeping county offices for listening devices, claiming Kunasek had wasted taxapayer money.

Yet these same lawmen were apparently eavesdropping on their own chief financial officer, the now-retired Loretta Barkell.

Her account of the matter implies that she had long suspected as much. Then, in late 2010, came her "confirmation."

About a week after giving some advice in her office to Deputy Chief Frank Munnelll, the man who blew the whistle on corruption in the upper echelons of the department, she found herself called in for a meeting with Arpaio, Hendershott, and MCSO legal counsel Jack MacIntyre.

During an investigation of Munnell's allegations, Barkell related how Hendershott -- in front of Arpaio and MacIntyre -- proceeded to "ream me up one side and down the other."

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Image: Nau's Facebook site

Shawn Nau, Maricopa County general government director, received verbal counseling after he was caught leaking court-protected documents to the Arizona Republic.

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Shawn Nau, Maricopa County's general government director, was responsible for leaking records about former deputy Joel Fox to the press in apparent defiance of a court order.

Though county spokeswoman Cari Gerchick told us last week that the leaker had received a written reprimand for his actions, it turns out that Nau only received "verbal counseling," (though documented in a written memo dated yesterday).

Superior Court Judge Sam Myers ruled in June that state law prohibits the release of internal investigation records until the appeals process is exhausted.

After the records were leaked to Arizona Republic reporter JJ Hensley, who soon published an article about them, the county declined to give the records to anyone else, citing Myers' ruling. County officials told New Times, the Associated Press and other media outlets that the person who leaked the documents would be disciplined.

And so he was, although it was just a slap on the wrist. We suspect no one at the county cared that the contents of Fox's notice of termination and appeal letters was published, but that a public scolding was needed to make it look like they were concerned.More >>

Peter Spaw, a deputy county attorney, is the subject of a "pre-screening inquiry" that could lead to State Bar investigation due to his role in a discredited federal racketeering complaint against county officials.

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One major difference between the old and new lawsuits against Maricopa County by a retired judge and current County Supervisor is this name:

Peter Spaw.

Spaw, a deputy prosecutor with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office since 2000, was a key figure in the 2009 federal racketeering complaint against county officials that got former County Attorney Andrew Thomas in so much trouble. The complaint, now thoroughly discredited and dropped, was launched by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Thomas as part of their attack on political enemies, and targeted the entire Board of Supervisors, judges, lawyers and county officials in a conspiracy theory unsupported by evidence.

Spaw helped -- and allegedly supervised -- former Thomas employee Rachel Alexander, a pro-Thomas blogger and relatively inexperienced prosecutor who was handed the complex case by Thomas after it was filed by Thomas' other go-to gal, Lisa Aubuchon.

While Thomas, Aubuchon and Alexander stood before the Arizona State Bar's disciplinary judge in hearings that concluded earlier this month, Spaw attended only as a witness.

But with the hearings now over, Spaw now finds himself named as a defendant in two of the amended complaints against the county, Arpaio and others.

Besides that problem, John Gleason, the independent counsel from Colorado who led the State Bar's case against the three former prosecutors, considers Spaw the "subject of a pre-screening inquiry," says a Bar spokesman.

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Mary Rose Wilcox and Don Stapley are among the six current and former county officials who amended their federal complaints recently against Sheriff Arpaio and Maricopa County.

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Current and former Maricopa County officials have filed new, streamlined complaints against the county and Sheriff Joe Arpaio to comply with a judge's order.

Filing anew are: County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox and her husband, Earl; County Supervisor Don Stapley; retired Superior Court Judges Barbara Mundell and Gary Donahoe; deputy county manager Sandi Wilson; and Stapley's executive assistant, Susan Schuerman.

U.S. District Judge Neil Wake tossed the officials' original complaints earlier this month, annoyed at verbiage in them that was "irrelevant, inflammatory, or included for an improper purpose." Wake had previously griped about "indecorous" language in the federal lawsuits that seemed written with an "eye to the press."

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