Arpaio jail march stalls priest’s return

A march of semi-nude Maricopa County jail inmates stopped extradition proceedings in Ireland for a suspected pedophile priest.

View copy of letter from Irish officials

Now prosecutors are scrambling to find another jail to house the Rev. Patrick Colleary if he’s returned to Arizona to stand trial.

On April 15, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio had 700 inmates — clad only in pink underwear and flip-flops — move from old jails to new ones. The march raised concerns with the Irish government that Colleary, former associate pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Scottsdale, would be mistreated in a county jail, according to a letter sent Tuesday between Irish and U.S. government officials.

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas will ask the federal government to hold Colleary pending trial rather than Arpaio, wrote his chief assistant.

"The extradition of Patrick Colleary remains a high priority of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. The crimes for which Mr. Colleary stands accused, involving the sexual abuse of children, are reprehensible and must be addressed. We firmly believe our community should not suffer because of this illadvised act by the Sheriff’s Office," wrote Sally Wolfgang Wells, chief assistant county attorney.

Arpaio said he is being made the "sacrificial lamb" and that Thomas is bowing to Irish officials.

"That’s garbage," Arpaio said. "I’m not going to talk about all their ill-advised acts."

The inmates were moved in their underwear so they couldn’t hide contraband and his jails have always passed constitutional muster, Arpaio said.

"If the guy doesn’t want to come to my hotel, he can go to the country club federal prison," Arpaio said.

An Irish judge was going to decide April 22 whether Colleary was to be returned to Arizona. The proceedings were stopped, however, after news articles of the march appeared in The Sun, a London tabloid newspaper, according to a letter from Charles Wallace, an attorney with the Chief State Solicitor of Ireland, to Tressa Borland, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Wallace especially wanted an explanation about the Arpaio quote, "I put them on the streets so everybody could see them. . . . If a kid asks his mother what was going on, she could tell him this is what happens to people who break the law. I view it as another deterrent to fight crime."

Wallace wanted to know why Arpaio’s quotes in British newspapers contradict sworn claims by county prosecutors that inmates are treated humanely, aren’t degraded and their rights aren’t violated.

Wallace, reached in Ireland, and Borland in Washington, D.C., refused to comment.

"We don’t comment on ongoing extradition cases, even to confirm or deny they’re pending," Borland said.

The county attorney’s office regrets the way in which inmates were relocated and believes it was not necessary to do it in that manner, Wells wrote.

Arpaio said Colleary would be segregated and protected if he were in county jail, but he would still be given standard jail meals and made to wear pink underwear and a striped jail uniform.

"I’m not going to change any of my policies," Arpaio said.

Colleary spent a month in jail under Arpaio’s often controversial administration after he was arrested Dec. 4, 2002, on a grand jury warrant accusing him of molesting Chandler resident Mark Kennedy in 1979.

The case was dismissed under the statute of limitations.

Colleary was long gone to Ireland when he was indicted again May 28, 2003, on three counts of sexual conduct with a minor, this time accused of molesting a different boy in the same time period.

Colleary sent Christmas cards to his supporters in December 2003, thanking them and proclaiming his innocence.

Kennedy and the other victim, whose identity the Tribune is not revealing because he’s never spoken publicly about the molestations as Kennedy has, have both sued Colleary.