Gov. Janet Napolitano is creating a special police detail to find felons with outstanding warrants. The governor plans to pay for the multiagency task force with $1.6 million in money slated for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

Napolitano, Arpaio at odds over felony warrants

Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Tuesday that the action is part of a conspiracy and is probably illegal.

The governor, in an executive order signed Monday, said there are nearly 60,000 unserved warrants statewide for people either charged with felonies or already convicted. She ordered Arizona Department of Public Safety director Roger Vanderpool to set up a special squad to deal with the backlog. The squad would be made up his own officers and those from other agencies.

At the same time, Vanderpool decided not to renew a contract signed last year with Arpaio’s office to fund most of the salaries of 15 of his officers to work on the State Gang Intelligence and Immigration Team Mission. Instead, that nearly $1.6 million will go to the felony task force.

Gubernatorial press aide Jeanine L’Ecuyer said Napolitano decided that rounding up the felons was a better use of limited resources.

But Arpaio said the governor, along with officials in Phoenix and Maricopa County, “conspired to take away ... money that the state Legislature and the (county) Board of Supervisors approved specifically to enforce human smuggling laws, money my office needs to fight illegal immigration.”

He said Napolitano’s decision to create the felony warrant task force is “a cover-up for taking away grant money to fight illegal immigration,” calling the move “despicable.’’

And DPS chief Pennie Gillette acknowledged the only State Gang Intelligence and Immigration Team Mission contract not renewed was for Maricopa County. But Gillette said taking the money only from Arpaio’s office was justified, saying nearly 42,000 of those outstanding felony warrants are from his county.

Whether the governor’s action is legal is another matter.

House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, said the Legislature put $10 million into the current state budget specifically to contract with local police agencies to work with the State Gang Intelligence and Immigration Team Mission, with some of that earmarked for Maricopa County. He said Napolitano cannot unilaterally overrule what is in the law and use the funds to round up felons.

Maricopa County Andrew Thomas said he is exploring whether to sue.

“There were agreements signed and agreements now are not being honored,” he said.

Gillette, however, said Arpaio’s spending of the money does comply with the law.

“The money was entitled for immigration-related criminal activity ... and also related to human smuggling,” she said.

Gillette said many of those warrants are for “undocumented aliens that have committed criminal offenses that have caused them to have a warrant issued for their arrest.”

But Napolitano’s executive order does not limit the use of the funds to rounding up only illegal immigrants wanted for felonies.

Arpaio said he believes Napolitano and her political allies targeted his agency — and his funding — because of his active role in looking for illegal immigrants.

The sheriff has engaged in a series of “crime suppression sweeps” in several communities, flooding the area with deputies who stop people for minor violations. That, in turn, gives those deputies, who have special federal training, the opportunity to question those stopped about whether they are in the country illegally.

Those moves have angered not only immigration rights activists but also some local police chiefs who said the sheriff’s actions are endangering their own officers.

Napolitano has refused to publicly criticize Arpaio, whose actions helped get her elected governor in 2002, saying only she would not “referee” disputes between the sheriff and others.

But L’Ecuyer acknowledged Tuesday the decision not to renew Arpaio’s grant was based, at least in part, on the sweeps.

“It’s part of the whole situation that we’re looking at,” she said. “You can’t be that oblivious to what’s going on in the world.”

Arpaio said he will continue to work with the governor. “I just want my money back,” he said.

The sheriff also vowed to continue the sweeps, saying they are not being funded through the state money. He acknowledged, though, that the 15 officers whose salaries were paid by the money sometimes were used in those efforts.

L’Ecuyer sidestepped a question of whether the decision to create the felony task force at the expense of Arpaio’s grant was political.

“By definition, everything that we do is political,” L’Ecuyer said. “So when you try to parse that you’re getting into a game that I’m not going to play.”

L’Ecuyer said Vanderpool invited Arpaio’s agency to join the felony task force. She said that would give his agency virtually the same amount of money, albeit for a different purpose.

Arpaio, a Republican, defended the Democrat Napolitano after a political foe had accused her of refusing to prosecute a child pornography case.