New Times reporter not pleading guilty

A news reporter who was barred from photographing Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office records at a law office has rejected a plea deal to settle a disorderly conduct allegation.

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New Times reporter Ray Stern said a Phoenix city prosecutor on Thursday offered him a fine of $100 or attending anger management classes in exchange for a guilty plea.

“I’m not going to (plead guilty),” Stern said.

Sheriff’s investigators allege in their report that on Oct. 18, Stern caused a commotion and scared employees at the law offices of Iafrate & Associates, 649 N. Second Ave. in Phoenix.

“I know I wasn’t yelling,” Stern said Monday.

Stern was there to view 1,300 pages in public records from the sheriff’s office for a story he was writing.

The employees there wouldn’t allow Stern to photograph the documents with his own camera, arguing that it wasn’t permitted under the Arizona Open Records Law. They offered to make copies for him at 50 cents per page or let him simply review them.

Arizona law doesn’t forbid photographing public records.

Michele Iafrate, a private attorney under contract with the county, asked Stern to leave.

That evening, two sheriff’s detectives went to Stern’s house and gave him a citation for disorderly conduct.

That same night, detectives arrested and booked New Times’ top executives, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, on suspicion of disclosing grand jury information, then later released them. The executives had published a story about grand jury subpoenas demanding broad access to reporters’ notes and files, as well as information on New Times Web site visitors.

Dennis Wilenchik, a special prosecutor hired by the county attorney, was investigating the paper after it published Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s home address on its Web site.

County Attorney Andrew Thomas fired Wilenchik the following day and ended the probe.