Thomas uses private lawyers on opponents

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money on private lawyers to pursue cases against people and organizations he and Sheriff Joe Arpaio politically oppose.

Thomas has paid Wilenchik and Bartness, the company he worked for immediately before taking office, at least $320,000 for legal services related to a range of opponents and high-profile political cases, according to county records.

Another firm, Iafrate & Rai, has been paid at least $35,000 to handle part of the county attorney’s legal work involving Phoenix New Times, the alternative newsweekly that on Friday was at the center of a public backlash against Thomas and Arpaio after sheriff’s deputies arrested and jailed its executives over violating grand jury secrecy rules.

Other political opponents of Thomas and Arpaio who have been the subject of legal work by outside counsel include immigration rights activists We Are America and the state’s top legal enforcement official, Attorney General Terry Goddard, as well as the West Valley View newspaper.

On Friday, Thomas dismissed Dennis Wilenchik from the New Times case, saying the matter had been “badly mishandled.” That was after Wilenchik, who had been spearheading the attorney’s office investigation of the paper, had issued grand jury subpoenas for New Times records, including wide-ranging Internet and Web user information, and had New Times’ executives Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin jailed for writing about the subpoenas. Thomas said at a news conference he had not known about Wilenchik’s actions against the paper and its executives before hand.

All charges against New Times and its staff have been dropped. Billing records current through September show Thomas had paid Wilenchik at least $5,000 for work on the New Times case in addition to the money to Iafrate.

Wilenchik remains under contract with the county to handle civil cases, but will no longer prosecute criminal matters, county attorney officials said.

Thomas couldn’t be reached for comment on the outside legal work or why he has contracted with his former law firm. Wilenchik also did not return phone calls last week about his work for the county attorney.

And Barnett Lotstein, Thomas’ chief spokesman, said he did not know the type of work the law firm performed on the contract cases. He added that he would not be able to release details anyway because of attorney-client privilege.

“It’s not unusual for our office to hire outside counsel to help out on civil cases,” he said Thursday afternoon. “It’s an absolutely appropriate decision by this office.”

Lotstein did say that hundreds of entries on the accounting summaries have been purposely coded to conceal information regarding what — or who — they were about. So the county attorney’s office could be spending much more public money on cases with political overtones than revealed by the brief notations on the billing summaries.

Still, the abbreviated information available in the billing records of dozens of outside firms released under a public records request show that Wilenchik is the one Thomas has turned to most for high-profile and politically charged cases.

The county attorney’s office has been regularly asked questions regarding the Wilenchik and Bartness contracts because of Thomas’ earlier relationship with the firm, Lotstein said.

For several months before he was elected, Thomas worked for the firm in an unspecified role.

In total, the law firm has billed county taxpayers more than $1.8 million for legal work since January 2005, when Thomas took office.

In the year before Thomas became county attorney, the firm received no public work from the county because it had not been approved by the County Board of Supervisors to handle legal issues.

Since gaining approval with Thomas’ election, the firm has become one of the prosecutor’s most used outside contractors.

Since January 2005, Thomas’ office has hired about 50 private law firms to handle county legal work at a cost of nearly $13 million, according to records.

Only three other private law firms have been paid more than Wilenchik and Bartness for legal services during the past three years. One of those is Jones Skelton & Hochuli, which has been paid more than $4 million by the county attorney’s office.

Some of the nearly 900 entries on the Wilenchik and Bartness summary sheets — called “transaction details” — do include a notation on what the expenditure is related to, such as “Goddard,” “New Times,” or “We Are America.” Other entries refer to “Justice Courts” or “Libertarian Party” or someone’s name, for instance.

The records show the firm submitted a pair of bills in August and September for work relating to the state attorney general’s office, totaling nearly $14,000.

The legal and political controversy between Thomas, Arpaio and Goddard has escalated in recent months, and Wilenchik has been at the center of the dustup. The county attorney and sheriff have been investigating the attorney general in a criminal probe to determine whether Goddard took illegal payments from former State Treasurer David Peterson, accusations that Goddard says are baseless and politically motivated.

In 2002, Thomas, a Republican, ran unsuccessfully for the state attorney general’s office against Goddard, a Democrat. Thomas is up for re-election as county attorney next year.

But some of the most lucrative legal work for the law firm came from work regarding Dan Saban, the former Mesa police officer and now Buckeye police chief who has been Arpaio’s main political rival for the county sheriff’s post.

The law firm billed taxpayers about $255,000 for work relating to Saban, according to records.

Saban had accused Arpaio of a smear campaign that defamed him during the 2004 election and filed a civil lawsuit against him. That case recently ended in Arpaio’s favor with a jury finding that no defamation occurred.

And another highly publicized dispute with the West Valley View over access to public records and e-mails cost the county nearly $40,000 in billings by Wilenchik and Bartness.

Thomas has been a staunch opponent of illegal immigration, using his position as county attorney and teaming with Arpaio to pursue legal action against undocumented immigrants whenever possible.

Thomas supported the voter-approved Proposition 200 — which requires voters to show proof of citizenship in order to vote. That ballot measure was passed in 2004, so all the work done by Wilenchik on the measure has come after the law was in place. Again, there is no indication what the legal services involved.

One of the biggest critics of Thomas, Arpaio and their anti-immigrant policies has been We Are America, also known as Somos America, a nationally recognized immigration rights organization.

Wilenchik and Bartness has been paid nearly $20,000 for work labeled as involving We Are America. And another private firm, Schmitt, Schneck, Smyth & Herrod, was paid nearly $10,000 for work identified as relating to We Are America. The county attorney records don’t reveal what the work entailed.

And Roberto Reveles, a past president of the group also called Somos America, said he did not know until contacted by a reporter that the county attorney had any interest in or involvement with his organization. The county has not filed any case, civil or criminal, involving the group.

“I don’t know anything,” said Reveles, who was active in the group in February and March when most of the expenditures were made. “Obviously we were being investigated.”

In January, eight members of the group, including Reveles, were cited by Glendale for marching without a permit. The group was demonstrating during the BCS Bowl football game, Reveles said.

Still, he said, he didn’t know why the county attorney would be involved in that case, especially after the fact.

“It’s an extremely ugly environment being created by all these investigations,” Reveles said. “It’s a really frightening abuse of power and I don’t think the general public ... well, it’s somehow not connecting.”

Outside help

County Attorney Andrew Thomas used taxpayer money to pay contract law firms to handle a number of cases involving high-profile opponents, causes and media. Examples include:

New Times: $39,870.50

West Valley View: $37,393.25

Proposition 200: $24,616

We Are America: $29,384.59

Dan Saban: $224,220

Terry Goddard: $13,930

NOTE: Totals could be higher. Some billing records were coded.

Source: Maricopa County Attorney billing records

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Tribune editor Patti Epler contributed to this report.