Andrew Thomas Disqualified in Case Against Wilcox

PHOENIX - A judge disqualified Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas on Wednesday from prosecuting a criminal case against a county supervisor and threw out the charges against her.

Pima County Superior Court Judge John Leonardo, who was appointed to hear the case, said Thomas faced a conflict of interest in prosecuting Mary Rose Wilcox and ruled that the conflict violated Wilcox's rights when Thomas' office presented allegations against her to a grand jury in January.

"Because the defendant has no representative to watch out for his or her interests before the grand jury, the prosecutor has a duty (to) not take advantage of this role to unfairly influence the grand jury," Leonardo wrote.

Wilcox, 60, was accused of voting on contracts involving a Hispanic advocacy group that had given her loans and never filing conflict-of-interest statements. She had pleaded not guilty to felony charges of conflict of interest, perjury, forgery and false swearing.

Michael Anthony Scerbo, a spokesman for the county attorney's office, said it had no immediate comment Wednesday. Maricopa County prosecutors have said they didn't face a conflict in prosecuting Wilcox and that the request for Thomas to be disqualified was groundless.

A message left for Wilcox at her office wasn't immediately returned.

For more than a year, Thomas and the Board of Supervisors have been at odds over investigations of county officials and whether the county attorney's office can represent the board in civil matters.

Thomas and his chief ally, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, have filed a federal lawsuit accusing a group of county administrators, judges and attorneys of conspiring to hinder an investigation into a $341 million court building under construction in Phoenix and the investigation of another county supervisor.

County officials have said Arpaio and Thomas have abused their powers and have unfairly investigated them.

The judge in Wilcox's case said Thomas had a conflict in retaliating against county supervisors for actions they allegedly took against him, in trying to gain an advantage by prosecuting political rivals and in his alliance with Arpaio, who the judge said misused his power to target supervisors for investigations.

The sheriff's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Even though Thomas never acknowledged a conflict in investigating Wilcox, Leonardo said evidence of conflict can be found in his decision to send the investigations of Wilcox and other county officials to a prosecutor in a neighboring county and his attempt to hire outside special prosecutors to handle those probes.

A week ago, Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, who took on the investigations in April and handed them back over to Thomas in October, had testified that the sheriff wanted to use grand jury subpoenas to pry into the lives of county officials in hopes of charging them with crimes.

Wilcox's attorneys had said Thomas' office, when it acted as a civil legal adviser to the Board of Supervisors, gave her advice on financial disclosure statements later used to bring criminal charges against her.

The judge said evidence showed that the county attorney's office had given such advice to the board in the period during which Wilcox allegedly committed the violations.

Wilcox's attorneys had asked the judge to disqualify Thomas from prosecuting her because Thomas has been embroiled in other legal disputes with county officials and because he had taken back the Wilcox investigation even though he had turned it over to Polk.

Statement from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office

We disagree with the courts conclusion that our office has a conflict of interest and we will appeal that decision. We are encouraged that the courts ruling authorizes the Maricopa County Attorney to appoint independent special prosecutors.

In accordance with that ruling we shall appoint special prosecutors to assume responsibility for the investigation of all matters relating to members of the Board of Supervisors and the Judiciary. This is what we have been seeking since the start of this investigation. However, the Board of Supervisors denied our repeated attempts to do so. Had they facilitated the appointment of special prosecutors this protracted legal process would not have been necessary. We have also requested that the Board of Supervisors call a special meeting Friday to facilitate the appointment.

We are dismissing the criminal complaint against Judge Donahoe and the second Stapley indictment without prejudice pending the outcome of the appeal of the courts decision and the appointment of special prosecutors.

Statement from Sheriff Joe Arpaio

We have conducted professional criminal investigations. We agree with the decision by the County Attorney and look forward to working with the newly appointed special prosecutors on these matters.