Homeless in Arizona

County Attorney pursuing civil enforcement action against AG Tom Horne

"Officials said that civil penalties are being pursued because there was not a sufficient basis for filing criminal charges" - I translation - "I don't want to send a fellow politician to prison"

You hear that line every time a prosecutor doesn't want to charge a pig with a crime. I remembers when a News 12 Helicon caught a some phoenix pigs beating up a Mexican who stole a car, and that is the line the prosecutor gave us.

Source

County Attorney pursuing civil enforcement action against AG Tom Horne

Stems from possible violation of campaign finance laws; fines up to $1.5 million possible

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Craig Harris - Oct. 1, 2012 10:35 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The Maricopa County Attorney's Office is initiating a civil enforcement action against Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and Kathleen Winn, one of his political allies, alleging they violated state campaign finance laws.

County Attorney Bill Montgomery alleged at a 10 a.m. news conference that Horne actively directed fundraising by an independent expenditure committee and communicated strategy with Winn, who worked for the committee, during the final weeks of 2010 campaign for attorney general.

It is illegal for candidates to communicate with independent expenditure committees.

Officials said that civil penalties are being pursued because there was not a sufficient basis for filing criminal charges and state statutes specifically allow for civil handling of such matters.

Montgomery said the law allows civil penalties of up to three times the cost of illegal literature or advertisements disseminated during the time of illegal activity. The independent expenditure committee raised more than $500,000 in the final weeks of the 2010 campaign from the Republican State Leadership Committee and individual donors. The money paid for television advertisements advocating against Felecia Rotellini, Horne's Democratic opponent in that race.

The County Attorney intends to issue an order requiring compliance by the independent committee and the Tom Horne for Attorney General campaign committee, followed by an order assessing a civil penalty.

In August, the county attorney initiated a separate civil enforcement action against the Committee for Justice and Fairness, an independent expenditure committee that paid for a commercial advocating against Horne's candidacy and which failed to register with the Arizona Secretary of Office . Oral argument in that matter is scheduled for Oct. 8.

The findings came after an 11-month investigation by the FBI and county investigators. Secretary of State Ken Bennett determined there was reasonable cause to believe Horne and Winn violated civil statutes governing independent expenditure committees, Montgomery said at his news conference.

According to the county attorney, the independent expenditure campaign raised more than $500,000 run ads to beat out Horne's Democratic challenger.

The investigation also uncovered evidence of a misdemeanor vehicle hit-and-run incident, which was referred to the City of Phoenix for review.

The FBI and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office have been investigating whether Horne and Winn, improperly colluded with Horne on an independent expenditure committee when he was running for office.

Horne, a Republican, said late Sunday he was unaware of any announcement that may involve him. He said he likely would issue a written statement following any such announcement. He has previously denied any wrongdoing.

Two of Horne's employees -- one a longtime state investigator -- have accused him of communicating with an independent expenditure committee during the 2010 election as it raised money to run negative ads against Horne's Democratic opponent. State law prohibits coordination between candidates and independent expenditure committees. Those who violate laws governing independent expenditure committees can face stiff financial penalties.

Horne's employees alleged he communicated regularly with Winn, chairwoman of the Business Leaders for Arizona, as she solicited money from Horne's brother-in-law in California and GOP supporters across the Valley.

In June, state criminal investigator Margaret "Meg" Hinchey said she had obtained information that Horne collaborated with the independent expenditure committee. Hinchey turned witness statements and other evidence over to the FBI, which began an investigation in January.

FBI special agents have been gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses over the course of several months. The FBI shared information with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, which issued subpoenas.

A separate complaint filed with the Arizona Secretary of State's Office by another Horne employee and former political ally alleged Horne helped funnel $115,000 from his brother-in-law to the committee and promised a job to Winn as a reward for her work on the committee. Horne has vehemently denied the allegation, and points out he first offered Winn's position to someone else.

Horne, the state's No. 3 GOP official, can continue to serve as Arizona's top prosecutor and provide legal advice to agencies.

Horne is among numerous Arizona elected officials to face state or federal investigations since 2008. That list includes the Gov. Jan Brewer, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, Rep. Ben Arredondo, D-Tempe, former Arizona Rep. Richard Miranda and former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas.

Previously, Horne has said that Winn, in December 2009, filed paperwork to create Business Leaders for Arizona to oppose Thomas, who ran against Horne in the primary election. Horne said that although Winn filed the paperwork, there was no independent expenditure during the primary.

She volunteered for Horne's campaign before the primary. When the primary was over, Horne has said, Winn told him she was withdrawing from his campaign to conduct an independent campaign "on her own initiative" in the general election.

Horne has said he had no knowledge that Winn approached his sister for a contribution to that independent campaign.

The large contribution came in late October 2010, as Horne and his Democratic opponent, Felecia Rotellini, were in a tight race. Business Leaders for Arizona, headquartered at Winn's Mesa home, raised $512,500 in nine days to fund anti-Rotellini TV ads through Tempe-based Lincoln Strategy Group.

Independent campaigns are created to eclipse the contribution limits imposed on a candidate's own campaign, which are capped at $840 in the attorney general's race.

The independent committee, however, could raise far more from individual sources.

State campaign-finance records show Lincoln Strategy Group spent nearly all the money raised by the BLA on the attack ads.

During a June 29 interview, Horne spokeswoman Amy Rezzonico told The Arizona Republic that Winn was known for her energy and determined style she brought to the job. Rezzonico said Horne is "deeply loyal" to Winn because of her work on the independent expenditure committee. Rezzonico said Horne would not have won his bid for attorney general had it not been for Winn.

"Kathleen was under fire with people, meaning, you know, she wasn't that popular with some people," Rezzonico said. "She was overzealous in her job. She kind of got into everybody's business and that was annoying to people."

"However, we knew, I mean, in Tom Horne's close circle, that Kathleen had done a good job for Tom Horne. She went off, she did an independent expenditure for him, and he's deeply loyal to people such as that, that do such things ... Tom was deeply fond of her."

The uncivil politics of prosecution

The uncivil politics of prosecution

By EJ MONTINI

Mon, Oct 01 2012

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said there were not sufficient legal grounds to pursue a criminal case against Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and Kathleen Winn, General Director of Community Outreach for Horne’s office, over alleged campaign finance violations that occurred when Horne was running for office in 2010.

So Montgomery is pursuing a “civil enforcement action.”

Although, this being politics, “civil” seems like an oxymoron.

That is why many of the questions raised at Montgomery’s Monday press conference over the Horne case seemed to revolve around politics, rather than prosecution, often focusing on the possibility that Montgomery, Horne and, to a degree, Secretary of State Ken Bennett, all Republicans, are seen as potential rivals in future state elections.

Montgomery dismissed that idea.

He said that we must take politics out of issues like this.

He said that in spite of his investigation of Horne that he expected the county attorney’s office and the attorney general’s office to have a “good working relationship.”

You hope so.

But people aren’t robots. They can’t just switch off their emotions. And the jobs of attorney general and county attorney are elected positions. They’re politicians as well as prosecutors.

And in any dual relationship like that politics usually wins.

Maybe this will be an exception.

However, before you call me or write the answer is…. no, I don’t want to bet on it.

Montgomery declines to call on Horne to resign

Montgomery declines to call on Horne to resign

By LAURIE ROBERTS

Mon, Oct 01 2012

The highest law enforcement official in the state (that would be Tom Horne) -- a guy who prosecutes people who break the law -- broke the law.

This, according to the second highest law enforcement official in the state (that would be Bill Montgomery) -- a guy who also prosecutes people who break the law.

It's just that he won't be prosecuting anybody this time.

Montgomery this morning announced that Horne knowingly tromped all over campaign finance laws, in order to defeat Democrat Felicia Rotelini in the 2010 attorney general's race. He worked with and even directed the spending of money in an independent expenditure campaign, which is a distinct no-no under Arizona law.

There's just not much anybody can do about it.

Montgomery plans to tell Horne that his committee must repay the money or face a penalty of up to $1.5 million.

But that penalty applies only to the committee, not to Horne.

In other words, no harm, no foul.

So to recap, if you're a candidate you can get one of your pals to start an independent campaign and then get your other pals to give as much money to that campaign as they wish, and THEN you can direct how all that glorious money is spent.

It's called cheating your way into office.

I asked Montgomery if he planned to call on Horne to resign. It seems obvious that you can't be enforcing laws against other people if you don't follow them yourself.

To my surprise, Montgomery declined to call for Horne's resignation.

How you can hold a press conference to announce a blatant violation of the election law by the attorney general of the state and then not call for that same attorney general to resign is just beyond me.

Then again, this is Arizona politics we're talking about.

Documents detail Horne fender-bender

Source

Documents detail Horne fender-bender

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - Oct. 1, 2012 07:50 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

It may not be a campaign-finance allegation that Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne is remembered for. It might be the March 27 hit-and-run fender-bender he was involved in while driving with a female employee to her home -- a collision witnessed by two FBI special agents who were tailing Horne when the accident occurred.

Documents obtained by The Arizona Republic through a public records request detail the crash. Maricopa County Attorney's Detective Mark Stribling wrote an April 19 memo describing how FBI agents Brian Grehoski and Merv Mason watched the accident happen.

Stribling wrote that agents saw Carmen Chenal, a longtime Horne confidante and employee, leave the Attorney General's Office during lunch hour, get into a vehicle and drive to a downtown Phoenix parking garage. Horne then left the office and drove his gold Jaguar into the same garage.

Horne and Chenal then left the garage with Horne driving the vehicle originally driven by Chenal, Stribling wrote. Chenal was in the passenger seat.

"Horne was now wearing a baseball hat and he drove to Carmen's residence where Horne backed into a white Range Rover," Stribling wrote. "Horne and Chenal then drove away, parked in a parking garage and both walked into residential area where Chenal lived."

The FBI turned its evidence over to the Phoenix Police Department on Monday. The city's review of the case is ongoing. A police spokesman said striking an unattended vehicle is a low-level misdemeanor that could result in a fine.

Horne on Monday said he didn't believe there was any damage when he bumped the vehicle.

"I didn't think there was any damage or I would have been happy to stop and pay for it," Horne said. "I stand ready to pay for the damage."

When asked who he was with at the time of the crash, Horne said he couldn't recall: "It was last March, I have no idea."

Reporter Craig Harris contributed to this report.

County Attorney: AG Tom Horne broke law

County Attorney: AG Tom Horne broke law

Stems from possible violation of campaign finance laws; fines up to $1.5 million possible

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Craig Harris - Oct. 1, 2012 10:21 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, the state's top law-enforcement official, deliberately broke campaign-finance laws during his 2010 bid for office by coordinating with an independent expenditure committee, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery concluded after a 14-month investigation.

At a news conference Monday, Montgomery said investigators found e-mails and phone records showing Horne, a Republican, was intimately involved with Business Leaders for Arizona, which raised and spent more than $500,000 to run TV ads blasting Horne's Democratic opponent, Felecia Rotellini, in the closing days of the tight race.

"There were contemporaneous e-mails and telephone conversations on how much money was expected from this particular source of funds, and what ... needed to be the message, concerns over the content of the commercial in production, and active communications about why maybe some of the messaging needed to be changed," Montgomery said.

Such committees, which unlike candidates can accept unlimited donations, are supposed to operate independently of candidates and their campaigns.

Montgomery, whose office worked with the FBI, said he will not pursue criminal charges because a civil statute was more applicable.

Montgomery, a Republican, said the investigation also uncovered evidence of a misdemeanor vehicular hit-and-run involving Horne. Records obtained by The Republic show Horne was under FBI surveillance at the time of the accident, which occurred as he drove an employee, Carmen Chenal, to her residence in downtown Phoenix. That case has been referred to the Phoenix Police Department for review.

Horne said Monday that he is not guilty and that investigators got the timing and the facts wrong. He said he has no plans to resign, noting many national politicians have paid fines for civil campaign-finance violations.

"The evidence will show that we did not coordinate (campaign-finance activities)," Horne said.

The political implications for Horne, considered a 2014 gubernatorial contender, remain unclear. Some political observers said Montgomery's findings could damage Horne's aspirations for higher office -- particularly if he does not disprove them.

Horne and Kathleen Winn, a top Attorney General's Office employee who ran the independent campaign, could face civil penalties under that statute. However, Montgomery said he believes the civil sanctions allowed by the law are inadequate. He plans to lobby state lawmakers in the next session to strengthen campaign-finance laws.

Horne and Winn first will be allowed to return to donors the amount of money that exceeded campaign-contribution limits. If they refuse, they could face up to $1.5 million in civil penalties -- three times the amount spent by the independent expenditure committee on ads blasting Rotellini.

Montgomery first said Horne and Winn would not be held personally liable but later changed his position, saying the law allows individuals to be held liable. Montgomery also theorized the independent expenditure committee could be responsible for repaying the money. That committee as of last month had $8.18, according to public records filed with the Arizona Secretary of State's Office.

FBI Agent James Turgal, whose office initiated the investigation, would not talk in detail about his agency's role. He said investigators conducted the inquiry and turned the file over to the U.S. Attorney's Office. A spokesman for that agency said it is not investigating Horne.

Independent committee

Independent campaigns are created to bypass donor-contribution caps imposed on candidate campaigns. In the attorney general's race, for example, donors to the Horne or Rotellini campaigns could contribute only $840 each.

In December 2009, Winn created Business Leaders for Arizona to raise money to oppose former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, a Republican who opposed Horne in the 2010 primary. Horne has said that although Winn filed paperwork, there was no independent expenditure during that primary.

Winn volunteered for Horne's campaign in the primary. When it was over, Horne has said, Winn told him she was withdrawing from his campaign to conduct an independent campaign "on her own initiative" in the general election.

State campaign-finance records show her committee raised large contributions in late October 2010 as Horne and Rotellini were running neck and neck. The committee, headquartered at Winn's Mesa address, raised $512,500 in nine days to fund anti-Rotellini TV ads through Tempe-based Lincoln Strategy Group, a political-consulting firm.

Contributions included a $115,000 donation from Horne's brother-in-law in California and $350,000 from the Republican State Leadership Committee, a Virginia-based organization whose goal is to elect Republicans to statewide office. Montgomery said Horne may not be required to repay the donation from his brother-in-law.

Horne beat Rotellini by 3 percentage points. Following his victory, Horne hired Winn as his director of community and outreach.

In July 2011, Horne assigned Margaret "Meg" Hinchey, supervising special agent in the attorney general's criminal division, to internally investigate whether an employee was leaking information about his agency to the media. During that probe, Hinchey uncovered allegations that Horne and Winn coordinated campaign activities. The next month, the information was turned over to the FBI, which started an investigation and asked the County Attorney's Office to assist with interviews and obtain subpoenas.

E-mail evidence

Typically, Secretary of State Ken Bennett's office investigates campaign-finance violations and recommends to the Attorney General's Office whether to pursue charges. That recommendation is needed for a prosecutor to take action, according to Bennett.

However, because the FBI's long involvement in Horne's case, it wasn't until last month that federal agents and the County Attorney's Office met with Bennett's staff to discuss why action should be taken against Horne.

Bennett provided Montgomery with an official letter Sept. 20, recommending that Montgomery pursue civil charges against Horne, Business Leaders for Arizona and Winn. The letter states that e-mails that are part of the evidence "unquestionably demonstrate Attorney General Horne actively seeking funds for the IE committee." An Oct. 27, 2010, e-mail from Horne to Winn says: "Try again for the hundred k (sic)."

Winn two days later raised $100,000 from Horne's brother-in-law, Richard G. Newman, a California businessman.

Bennett's office on Monday released an Oct. 20, 2010, e-mail exchange between Winn and Brian Murray, a consultant to Winn's committee. The records note that while Winn was discussing strategy with Murray via e-mail, she also was on the phone with Horne. That same day, Winn began raising money for the committee, campaign-finance records show.

Murray confirmed he cooperated with the FBI inquiry but had no comment on the allegations.

Winn said Monday that law enforcement treated her unfairly. She said thatinvestigators did not interview her for her side of the story and that she "never coordinated" with Horne. "It just never happened," she said.

Investigators are misreading her communications with Horne , she added. She was advising him on a complicated real-estate transaction, not details of the independent expenditure committee, she said.

"The people that conducted the investigation have phone logs and several e-mails that are disconnected," she said. "I'm glad I'm not in Salem, and I'm glad I'm not in the witch trials, because that's what it feels like today."

Political reactions

Political reaction was swift. Though Republicans generally would not comment on the record about a fellow Republican, the Democratic Party and its elected officials called on Horne to resign.

Rotellini called the charges a stain on the Attorney General's Office, noting the race was decided "by precious few votes."

"The attorney general will have his day in court, as he should," Rotellini said. "But the fact that Tom Horne needs to have a day in court is shameful. This goes well beyond politics. It goes to the core of the meaning of the office."

John J. "Jack" Pitney Jr., a government professor at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, said any allegation against a law-enforcement official undermines public trust.

"A conviction is far more damaging," Pitney said. "But even an accusation like this could give rise to future attacks, so it's very damaging. ... The personal and political image is very difficult to undo."

Republic reporters Mary Jo Pitzl and Michael Kiefer contributed to this article.

More on this topic

About the Arizona Attorney General

Salary: $90,000

Fiscal 2013 budget: About $102.7 million

Number of employees: About 900 in nine divisions.

Duties: Voters elect the attorney general to a four-year term, and he serves as the chief legal officer for the state. The office represents and provides legal advice to state agencies and enforces civil rights and consumer-protection laws. It prosecutes some financial and illegal-drug crimes. The office handles all felony conviction appeals.

Q&A on the Horne case, its ramifications

Q&A on the Horne case, its ramifications

by Craig Harris and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - Oct. 1, 2012 10:27 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Attorney General Tom Horne was accused Monday of breaking campaign-finance laws. He said he will not resign.

Question: What's the issue?

Answer: Horne is accused of coordinating with an independent campaign committee to help him win the 2010 election. Such coordination is illegal .

Q: What's the penalty?

A: Donors, who gave $512,500 to Business Leaders for Arizona committee, must be repaid. A fine of three times the expenditures, or roughly $1.5 million, could be assessed if he does not repay.

Q: Who pays?

A: It could come from Horne; Kathleen Winn, a current Attorney General's Office employee who ran the independent committee; the 2010 campaign committee; or a new committee.

Q: How did the FBI get involved?

A: An investigator working for Horne notified the FBI of possible illegal activity, which prompted the investigation.

Q: How did Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery get the case?

A: The FBI took the case to Montgomery because it involved state statutes, and the Attorney General's Office had a conflict of interest.

Misconduct allegations against Horne: A timeline

Misconduct allegations against Horne: A timeline

by Craig Harris - Jul. 1, 2012 11:24 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The Arizona Republic has constructed a time line of developments in Attorney General Tom Horne's case based on interviews, public records and documents in a $10 million defamation and retaliation claim filed against the state by Margaret "Meg" Hinchey, a former special agent in Horne's office.

Dec. 23, 2009: Business Leaders for Arizona, an independent expenditure campaign, is registered with the Arizona Secretary of State's Office. Kathleen Winn, a Horne supporter who would later be hired by his office, is the founder and makes the initial $100 contribution to the fund.

Oct. 20-29, 2010: Business Leaders for Arizona raises $512,500 in the final 10 days of a heated campaign. Nearly all the money is used to run negative ads against Felecia Rotellini, Horne's Democratic opponent for attorney general. Among the donors: Horne's brother-in-law, who contributes $115,000.

July 7, 2011: Horne picks Hinchey, a veteran investigator, to conduct a confidential internal investigation. The Republic has been told the probe was launched to determine if anyone leaked information to the media about Horne hiring into the office Carmen Chenal, a longtime Horne confidante whose law license had been suspended.

July 11-21, 2011: After getting access to an e-mail account of the person suspected of being the news leak, Hinchey discovers the employee was engaged in outside employment while being paid by the state.

Aug. 3, 2011: Hinchey is told of other possible criminal violations, including a grant application with potentially fraudulent information that may have been submitted to Gov. Jan Brewer's office.

Late summer 2011: Concerned about prior alleged criminal violations being "explained away," Hinchey reports the new allegations to the FBI.

Sept. 27, 2011: Amy Rezzonico, Horne's spokeswoman, "spontaneously" discloses to Hinchey that independent expenditures occurred for Horne, at his direction, during the 2010 campaign. It is illegal for a candidate for political office to be involved with an independent expenditure campaign. Horne has since denied involvement.

Sept. 29, 2011: Hinchey again is told about the grant-related fraud and the campaign finance allegations by an assistant attorney general.

Sept. 30, 2011: Hinchey reports allegations of illegal campaign-finance violations to the FBI.

Dec. 12, 2011: Hinchey learns that Deputy Attorney General Rick Bistrow and Horne discussed with Criminal Division Chief James Keppel whether or not they could destroy Hinchey's internal investigation file or "wipe her computer of all related documents." Keppel told them they could not.

Dec. 13, 2011: Hinchey provides outside law enforcement authorities a disc containing her investigative records, based on concerns her office records may be destroyed.

Jan. 11, 2012: The FBI contacts the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, seeking records about Horne's campaign and an independent expenditure committee operated by Winn. After the election, Winn had been named community-outreach and education director for the attorney general. Bistrow tells Hinchey her investigation is "suspended" and she is to take no further action.

Feb. 3, 2012: Horne and Bistrow tell Keppel that Hinchey "can't be trusted." Bistrow asks Keppel if he thinks Hinchey would notice if her case-file notebook was to go missing from her office. Keppel says she would.

Mid-February 2012: Horne tells Assistant Attorney General Steven Duplissis that Hinchey may have been having a personal relationship with Rotellini, whom Horne had defeated to become attorney general. Hinchey's attorney recently told The Republic that no such relationship ever existed. According to Duplissis, Horne asks if Hinchey was a registered Democrat and involved in Rotellini's campaign. Rotellini, who is divorced, tells the newspapers she never had a personal relationship with Hinchey.

March 20, 2012: Horne and Bistrow tell Keppel that Hinchey cannot be trusted because she went to the FBI to report "alleged baseless criminal activity" by Horne, related to campaign finance issues.

Late March 2012: Keppel resigns amid disagreements with Horne over the handling of Hinchey's investigation and other matters.

March 23, 2012: Hinchey's attorney writes Horne demanding an end to a "smear campaign" against Hinchey. Horne personally answers, saying there was no campaign and no investigation into Hinchey.

April 2, 2012: Horne publicly denies being involved in an independent expenditure committee that ran TV ads attacking Rotellini at the close of the 2010 campaign. Don Dybus, an assistant attorney general and Horne supporter, alleges Horne illegally collaborated with the independent expenditure committee to raise campaign funds, that he promised a job to Winn, and that he helped funnel money to the committee from his brother-in-law.

June 7, 2012: Hinchey files $10 million notice of claim against Horne, Bistrow and state of Arizona.

June 29, 2012: Bistrow tells The Republic he did not engage in a cover-up or attempt to destroy records that potentially show criminal activity as suggested in the claim. Rezzonico also denies allegations that she told Hinchey that independent expenditures had occurred for Horne during the 2010 campaign.

October 1, 2012: The Maricopa County Attorney's Office initiates a civil enforcement action against Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and Kathleen Winn, one of his political allies, alleging they violated state campaign finance laws. Officials said that civil penalties are being pursued because there was not a sufficient basis for filing criminal charges and state statutes specifically allow for civil handling of such matters.

Sources: Notice of claim, The Arizona Republic

Why no call for Tom Horne's resignation

Laurie Roberts' Columns & Blog

Arizona Republic Columnist

Why no call for Tom Horne's resignation?

By LAURIE ROBERTS

Mon, Oct 01 2012

Holy Fiesta Bowl, here we go again. Only this time it’s far worse than a few dozen junketeering legislators who got away with thumbing their noses at annoying laws that require them to pay for their own football tickets. It’s worse than wondering who’s paying for our leaders’ fabulous five-star weekend getaways – something they’re supposed to disclose but so often it slips their minds.

This time, it’s the attorney general of Arizona, the top law enforcement officer in the state who is accused of violating campaign finance laws. Basically, Attorney General Tom Horne is accused of cheating his way into office, only don’t look for anyone to suggest that he ought to have to forfeit that office.

This, after all, is Arizona, where the rugs in the hallways of power bulge like the San Francisco Peaks, given all the stuff swept underneath the things.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery on Monday announced a “civil enforcement action” against Horne and Kathleen Winn, who ran a supposedly independent campaign that raised and spent more than $500,000 on ads attacking Democrat Felecia Rotellini in the waning days of the November 2010 election.

At that point, Horne was out of cash in a close race and there was only one way to raise big money quickly: an independent campaign, where there are no limits on what a donor can contribute.

In just 10 days, Winn’s Business Leaders for Arizona raised $513,000 for last-minute attack ads.

Montgomery says that Horne was involved both in collecting that money and in designating how it should be spent – a definite no-no under Arizona law.

Both Horne and Winn are adamant that they did nothing wrong, with Horne calling the allegations “totally false.”

Montgomery, however, says he’s got the goods – phone records that show Winn engaged in e-mailing directions about the “independent” campaign while on the phone with Horne.

“This isn’t acceptable,” Montgomery said. “This isn’t acceptable to me as a citizen in this state and it isn’t acceptable to me in the capacity that I hold as county attorney.”

It isn’t acceptable but it apparently isn’t unacceptable enough that Montgomery would call for Horne’s resignation.

Or look further into how Winn came to be hired as Horne’s community-outreach and education director.

Or get to the bottom of what happened once Horne took office and a veteran investigator stumbled upon evidence of his involvement in the independent campaign. That investigator has claimed that Horne and a top aide engaged in a coverup and attempted to destroy records that might have showed criminal activity.

None of that, however, is under investigation by Montgomery – or anyone else, apparently.

And blatantly violating campaign finance laws in order to get yourself elected is evidently not a crime in Arizona.

Shocking, I know.

Montgomery, during his press conference, said that the Legislature needs to overhaul campaign finance laws. Of course, post Fiesta Bowl Fiasco, he said the same thing about the need for tighter laws governing disclosure of gifts and you know what happened on that. (Nothing, that would be.)

This time, however, Montgomery says he plans to lobby for tougher penalties, though he wasn’t specific on what he would be seeking.

So here’s a suggestion.

If you’re a candidate and you blow by campaign finance limits by having your pals give big money to an independent campaign in the final 10 days of a race…

… and then you direct how all that glorious money should be spent on attack ads against your opponent ….

… and you win with not even 52 percent of the vote….

Then you’re a cheater under ARS 16-Don’tYouDare and if you do, you’ve got to go.

It seems obvious, after all, that you can't be enforcing laws against other people if you don't follow them yourself.

But Montgomery declined to call for Horne's resignation while he’s pursing civil enforcement.

“I think it’s incredibly important for me to avoid … calling for the elected official in question to do anything else,” he said. “What’s important for me to do at this point in time is to make sure that the civil enforcement action goes forward.”

How you can hold a press conference to announce a blatant violation of the election law by the attorney general of the state and then not call for that same attorney general to resign is beyond me.

Then again, this is Arizona politics we're talking about.

Was Rotellini robbed by Horne?

Was Rotellini robbed by Horne?

By EJ MONTINI

Mon, Oct 01 2012

Tom Horne beat Democrat Felecia Rotellini in the 2010 race for the state attorney general job by a few percentage points.

So, given what County Attorney Bill Montgomery says about the shady financial dealings that Horne is alleged to have participated in during the campaign does that mean Rotellini was robbed?

Short answer: Yes.

At least that’s how it looks.

So, how does Rotellini, who spent more than a decade in the AG’s office going after bad guys, feel about all this? zI’ll let her tell you.

She issued a statement Monday that reads:

“The 2010 Attorney General’s race was decided by precious few votes. While there’s no way of knowing if that election might have ended differently without the boost provided by TV ads paid for with hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal donations, I do know this: Tom Horne stands accused of breaking the law, as determined by an FBI investigation and the Republican Maricopa County Attorney. The Attorney General will have his day in court, as he should. But the fact that Tom Horne needs to have a day in court is shameful.

“An Attorney General accused of breaking the law by his fellow law enforcement officials undermines the credibility of AG’s office and hurts the State of Arizona. This goes well beyond politics. It goes directly to the core attribute of the job: The ability to prosecute wrongdoers on behalf of the people of Arizona.

“You can’t stand accused of breaking the law and meanwhile defend the law. Attorney General Horne should be as ashamed of his alleged conduct as we, the people of Arizona, are disappointed in it.

“Let me also say this: As a career prosecutor, I know how hard resources are to come by in a world where you’re faced with investigating and prosecuting homicides, rapes and massive fraud. I very much appreciate the hard work and diligence of the FBI and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and the courage of all the witnesses who came forward in this case. Again, they’ve proven that no one in Arizona is above the law.

“Thank you.”

So, were WE robbed?

Short answer: Yes.

Some tie Horne case, Citizens United fears

Some tie Horne case, Citizens United fears

by Ronald J. Hansen - Oct. 1, 2012 10:26 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

As a legal matter, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne is accused of violating campaign-finance laws that were on the books long before the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

But as a practical matter, the case may play into fears that corporations have used the 2010 decision to thwart democracy, some election lawyers said.

On Monday, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery sought to fine Horne's campaign for what he deemed improper coordination with groups that are required to operate independently of candidates. Such collaboration has long been illegal under Arizona law.

Records show the independent groups relied on corporate donations, a funding source not permitted until the groundbreaking Citizens United case. Horne narrowly defeated Felecia Rotellini in 2010 to become the state's top law-enforcement officer.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court held that corporations and labor unions could spend directly and in unlimited amounts to influence elections, but only through independent groups.

For months, Washington, D.C.-based liberal advocacy group People for the American Way has cited the Horne case as a troubling example of the impact of that decision.

"That election really does show the dangerous impact of Citizens United," Paul Gordon, legislative counsel for the group, said Monday. "The fact is that most of this was corporate money. That's why it made such an impact. If you had some individuals putting in some money, it wouldn't have been nearly as much money."

But others said corporate money wasn't the issue.

"I don't think (the Horne case) has a whole lot to do with Citizens United," said Paul Eckstein, a Phoenix attorney who specializes in election law. Instead, it was the coordination between a candidate and an independent committee, he said.

While not seeing an impact in Horne's case, Eckstein takes issue with the ruling. The Citizens United decision assumes that campaign contributions can corrupt politicians and must be limited while independent expenditures are outside candidates' control and don't need limits, he noted.

AG Tom Horne was having an affair when he had his hit and run accident???

Remember Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne is the jerk who wants to throw medical marijuana users in prison.

Source

Probe into Horne's campaign finances leads to report over alleged hit-and-run

Posted: Monday, October 1, 2012 8:24 pm

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

The FBI probe into campaign finance activities of Attorney General Tom Horne is landing him in hot water over an alleged hit-and-run accident.

"I'm told that I bumped into another car pulling out of a parking spot, another parked car,'' Horne told Capitol Media Services.

"Apparently at the time, I didn't think it was damaged,'' Horne continued. "I was told later it was damaged. I was happy to pay if there was any damage.''

Horne said after being informed about the incident by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office he sent off a letter.

"As soon as I hear whose bumper I damaged, I'm happy to pay for it,'' Horne said.

But reports from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office show there may have been more involved -- and that Horne may have purposely left the scene. And they know about the incident because the FBI was already watching Horne and his office back in March.

That report shows that Carmen Chenal, a disbarred attorney hired by Horne at the Attorney General's office, left the office, got into a vehicle and drove to a parking garage. Horne left the building separately, got into his gold Jaguar and drove to the same parking garage.

"Horne and Chenal then exited the parking garage with Horne now driving the vehicle that Chenal was originally driving and Carmen in the passenger seat,'' according to a report filed by Detective Mark Stribling.

"Horne was now wearing a baseball hat and he drove to Carmen's residence where Horne backed into a white Range Rover,'' the report continued. "Horne and Chenal then drove away, parked in a parking garage and both walked into residential area where Chenal lived.''

Horne told Capitol Media Services he did not remember why he and Chenal drove to the area.

"It was last March, so who remembers?'' he said, adding that the site is a parking area for Pita Jungle and other restaurants.

The incident became public with Monday's release of the investigative report into Horne's 2010 election campaign.

Phoenix police report they just got the investigation Monday and are still looking into it. It is a violation of the law to leave the scene of an accident without reporting it to authorities or at least leaving your name for the owner of the other vehicle.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne

I bet that was just a smoke screen to direct attention away from his illegal campaign contribuntions and the old hit and run accident that appears to have happended while he might have been having an affair with Carmen Chenal.

Hmmm, I wonder will Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne attempt to find some lame *ss excuse to throw me in jail for posting these things on my web page that show that Arizona's top cop may have been involved in some illegal activities along with some immoral activities???

Look Tom, I don't care if you are sleeping with some other women besides your wife. But you are a hypocrite if you do that, while the same time you pretend to be holier then the rest of us because you want to jail medical marijuana smokers.

Tom Horne, the best Attorney General money can buy!!!!!

Let's toughen campaign law

Oct. 1, 2012 06:37 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Arizona's top law-enforcement official should be a pillar of integrity, avoiding even the appearance of impropriety.

Sadly, Arizona does not have that attorney general. A civil complaint unveiled by Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery on Monday is the latest suggestion that Tom Horne treats the law as an inconvenience.

The complaint alleges that Horne violated campaign-finance law in 2010 through direct involvement in Business Leaders for Arizona, an independent-expenditure committee supporting his candidacy. Such committees can accept unlimited contributions but are banned from coordinating with candidates.

Horne insists the allegations are false.

E-mails and phone records collected by the FBI and released by Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett suggest otherwise.

"Try again for the hundred k," suggests an Oct. 27, 2010, e-mail from Horne to the committee chair, Kathleen Winn, who now works in the Attorney General's Office. The committee's biggest individual benefactor was Horne's brother-in-law, who donated $100,000 on Oct. 29, 2010, eight days after giving $15,000, according to reports filed by the committee.

Other e-mail indicates Horne demanded changes in television ads slamming his opponent.

The amount of contact between Horne and Winn alarmed people working with the committee. Brian Murray, who created the TV ads, alerted his firm's attorney. "I warned (Winn) on numerous occasions that she needed to cease contact with the candidate and any agents of the campaign," he wrote in an e-mail. "I wanted to make you aware of this situation should something arise at a later date."

It inevitably arose.

State law makes violations of campaign-finance law a civil matter, so no criminal charges will be filed. Montgomery can seek fines of up to three times the cost of advertisements, or about $1.5 million.

Business Leaders for Arizona has $8.18, according to its Sept. 26 filing. Horne's committee has $11,304.

After initially indicating that the complaint would be directed against the committees, Montgomery clarified that penalties could be levied against Horne and Winn.

That would be significant. A fine against the committees would be symbolic. Making Horne and Winn write checks would say something.

The law, however, does not provide for the most fitting punishment against someone who wins election after egregiously gaming the system: Removal from office.

That should be added. For politicians looking to their next step up, it would be the greatest deterrent.

Arizona AG Tom Horne is having an affair with Carmen Chenal???

Tom Horne's Alleged Hit-and-Run at an Address Listed for Carmen Chenal (w/UPDATE)

By Stephen Lemons Mon., Oct. 1 2012 at 2:56 PM

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery's big press conference this morning alleged illegal coordination between Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and an independent expenditure committee during his 2010 campaign.

My pals in the Fourth Estate were in a feeding frenzy at the presser over this alleged civil violation, of a kind routinely committed in Arizona politics. Supposedly, the FBI spent 11 months looking into the allegations, which are as boring as watching trees grow.

But what I find more interesting than the supposed election law shenanigans -- the sort of hjinks normally overlooked by the FBI and the county attorney in our recent past -- is the following line from Montgomery's press release on the scandal du jour:

"The investigation also uncovered evidence of a misdemeanor vehicular hit-and-run incident, which was referred to the City of Phoenix for review."

According to the Phoenix Police Department, Horne was the driver of the vehicle, and according to my sources, Horne was being followed by FBI investigators when the run-in occurred.

This is the terse statement issued by the PPD after Montgomery's presser:

"The Phoenix Police Department is investigating a Hit-and Run collision, property damage only, which is alleged to have occurred on March 27, 2012 at approximately 12:45 P.M., at 202 West Roosevelt Street. The investigation was turned over to the Phoenix Police Department by the Federal Bureau of Investigations on October 1, 2012 and involves Arizona Attorney General Thomas Horne. The investigation is expected to take several weeks to complete."

That address also happens to be the address of a condominium complex at which Assistant Attorney General Carmen Chenal apparently resided, and may still reside.

For instance, it's the address listed for her in a 2010 campaign contribution that she made for Margaret Dugan, who was at the time running in the Republican primary for state school's superintendent.

Also, I just drove by the condo, and there is a "Chenal, C" listed for the building.

My sources tell me that Horne was on his lunch break at the time and backed into the unoccupied vehicle. He apparently left without leaving a note for the driver.

In 2011, I wrote at length about Chenal being hired for a post in the criminal division of the Arizona Attorney General's Office, despite her lack of experience in criminal law and despite the fact that she had been suspended by the state Bar of Arizona, and only recently had been reinstated.

What I did not address were allegations that Horne was engaged in a longstanding affair with Chenal that stretched back to their time at the Arizona Department of Education, when Horne was Superintendent.

Horne's spokeswoman Amy Rezzonico told me that she didn't know if Horne was with Chenal at the time of the accident. She claimed the Attorney General was parked in a public lot at the address so that he could eat at a nearby Pita Jungle.

She said Horne didn't know that he had bumped into the vehicle, and that he was "happy to pay" for any damage. Horne sent a message to the county attorney to this effect, she said, after being informed of the accident.

"Carmen Chenal and Tom Horne have been friends for a very long time," Rezzonico stated when I asked if the two had ever been in an affair. "She worked at the Superintendent's [office] and she also works at the Attorney General's Office. I'm not aware of anything other than they're friends."

Over time, multiple sources have alleged to me that Horne and Chenal are an item. One source even claimed to have spotted Horne coming out of Chenal's apartment.

Horne is married. Chenal is divorced. Her ex-husband Tom Chenal also works at the AG's office.

So what, you might ask? Well, my initial story about Horne and Chenal is what prompted Horne to order an internal investigation into who my source was for the story.

Suspicion quickly fell on Kathleen Winn, the AG's outreach director. As I've written in the past, though I've spoken to Winn on a number of occasions, she was not a source for that story. In fact, everything in the original piece about Horne and Chenal came from public records.

And yet, the investigator seeking out this non-existent mole in the AG's office ended up turning whistleblower, and handing off to the FBI allegations regarding Horne and an independent expenditure committee run in 2010 by Winn.

Needless to say, if I had never written about Chenal or inquired of her at the AG's office, the Attorney General would not have the tsouris he has now.

Montgomery's press release and the response from the AG's office are below. I'll have more to say about the campaign finance allegations in a subsequent blog post.

But I do find it more than a little annoying that the FBI's Special Agent in Charge James Turgal was able to make this press briefing by Montgomery, but was nowhere to be found when the U.S. Attorney's Office dropped the ball on the criminal investigation into Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office.

Which is more outrageous, the feds ending the criminal probe into Arpaio or anything alleged of Horne in this mess?

I'm sure you can guess my thoughts.

County Attorney Announces Civil Enforcement Action against Tom Horne and Kathleen Winn for Campaign Finance Violations

PHOENIX, AZ (October 1, 2012) - Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery is initiating a civil enforcement action against Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and Kathleen Winn, General Director of Community Outreach for the Attorney General's Office, for alleged campaign finance violations committed during the 2010 election cycle. The allegations stem from an 11 month-long FBI investigation into Business Leaders for Arizona (BLA), an independent expenditure committee chaired by Winn and operated in close coordination with Horne in violation of A.R.S. § 16-917. The investigation also uncovered evidence of a misdemeanor vehicular hit-and-run incident, which was referred to the City of Phoenix for review.

"While various alleged details of this investigation have been shared with several media outlets by people not conducting the investigation, the conduct of this investigation is an example of how sensitive matters should be dealt with: conclusions reserved after all facts and circumstances have been determined, dispassionate review of evidence, and decisions made to further the interests of justice without political consideration," said Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. "The conduct in question is expressly prohibited by Arizona's election laws and we will work to hold those responsible accountable," he added.

According to the results of the FBI's investigation, Horne actively directed BLA's fundraising and communications strategy with Winn in the final weeks of his 2010 campaign for Attorney General. During this time period, BLA raised more than $500,000 from the Republican State Leadership Committee and individual donors which paid for television advertisements advocating against Felicia Rotellini, Horne's Democrat opponent.

After reviewing the investigation, Secretary of State Ken Bennett determined there was reasonable cause to believe Horne and Winn's actions violated civil statutes governing independent expenditures, and directed the Maricopa County Attorney's Office to initiate an enforcement action pursuant to its statutory authority. The County Attorney intends to issue an order requiring compliance by BLA and the Tom Horne for Attorney General campaign committee, followed by an order assessing a civil penalty. The penalty for violating A.R.S. § 16-917 is three times the cost of the literature or advertisement that was distributed.

In August 2012, the County Attorney initiated a separate civil enforcement action against the Committee for Justice and Fairness, an independent expenditure committee that paid for commercials advocating against Tom Horne's candidacy for Attorney General and which failed to register with the Arizona Secretary of State's Office. Oral argument in this matter is scheduled for October 8, 2012.

PRESS STATEMENT FROM ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE

The charges regarding the 2010 election are totally false. There was no coordination between the campaign and the independent campaign. The law permits people to have contact, so long as there is no coordination or direction of the expenditure by the candidate, which there was not in this case. This will be completely proven to be true during the legal process.

The chairman of the independent campaign, Kathleen Winn, chose from whom to request contributions, made the requests, chose the consultant, prepared the ad, and did all other tasks associated with the expenditure, independently and without any input from Horne. Horne never referred anyone to an independent campaign to make a contribution. He never suggested to anyone with the independent campaign names of people to be solicited for contributions. He never attended an event for an independent campaign. He never spoke to anyone about making a contribution to an independent campaign. He never spoke to anyone about choosing the consultant, preparing the ad, or any other aspect of the independent expenditure.

This can be seen from the results. For example, Horne's Campaign had 1,900 contributors. The independent campaign had seven. If there had been coordination, the independent campaign would have had hundreds of contributors.

Mr. Montgomery stated that he had taken action against the independent campaign that supported Felecia Rotellini and that opposed me. It should be added that an independent law judge has already found that that campaign violated campaign law by not registering or making required disclosures. Also, on September 14, 2010, Felecia Rotellini attended a meeting of the Democratic Attorney General's Association and gave a speech there, which led to their decision to fund her independent campaign. Tom Horne never did anything like that.

In this case, by contrast, it will be fully and completely proven that the claims are false.

UPDATE 9/2/12: Below is an excerpt from a summary of a meeting between an MCAO investigator and the FBI.

Um, I told you so.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne leader goes down in disgrace

Yet another Arizona leader goes down in disgrace

By LAURIE ROBERTS

Fri, Oct 05 2012

We started the week with Attorney General Tom Horne being accused of violating campaign-finance laws. Basically, that he cheated and thus won the prize of becoming the top law enforcement official in the state.

We end the week with Rep. Ben Arredondo pleading guilty to a pair of felonies. Basically, that he accepted bribes in exchange for favors and donations for a college scholarship he had set up for needy students – read: his relatives.

Horne and Arredondo join what’s becoming quite the parade of shady or otherwise sad-sack public officials in this state.

There is Lester Pearce, recently accused of ethics violations when he was a justice of peace, for politicking for his brother, Russell – a no-no for judges.

There is his brother, Russell, whose pals planted Olivia Cortes in last year’s recall election, hoping to split the vote and allow Pearce back into office.

There is Darin Mitchell, the legislative candidate who a judge has ruled doesn’t live in his district as the law requires – and yet he remains on the ballot.

There is the tag team of Scott Bundgaard and Daniel Patterson, both of whom resigned from the Legislature this year before they could be thrown out, for their various domestic issues.

There is Joe Arpaio, who allowed his longtime right-hand man, Dave Hendershot, to basically run the sheriff’s office into the ground.

There is ex-Rep. Richard Miranda, who stole from a charity he ran and is now a guest in a federal coorectional institution. (Maybe Arredondo will be his roomie?)

I am reminded of the legendary words of Arredondo, while campaigning for the Legislature in 2010 (and at the same time channeling his inner Don Corleone). According to the federal indictment, while waiting to introduce undercover agents posing as developers to his replacement on the Tempe City Council, Arredondo assured them of his continued support.

"You guys will ask, you guys will have," the indictment quotes him as saying. "I don't know how else to say it. We'll be just fine because not only we're covered at the city, we're covered now at the state."

We're covered all right, in disgust at the state of elected leadership in Arizona.

Notes seem to incriminate Arizona AG Tom Horne

Source

Notes give insight into investigation of Horne

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Craig Harris - Oct. 6, 2012 11:33 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Handwritten notes from Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne's former criminal division chief appear to show Horne intervened to try to protect employee Kathleen Winn, the campaign-committee chairwoman he is accused of colluding with in violation of campaign-finance laws.

The 15 pages of notes from James Keppel, a former Maricopa County Superior Court judge, also appear to show that one top employee in Horne's office asked about hiding or destroying documents that implicated Winn in an unrelated internal investigation.

Keppel's notes were obtained during a 14-month investigation into Horne by the FBI and local authorities that culminated in Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery announcing last week that his office would pursue a civil case against Horne and Winn. Documents show the case was also investigated as a potential criminal matter.

Winn chaired an independent expenditure committee on Horne's behalf during his 2010 race for attorney general. By law, candidates are not allowed to coordinate activities with independent expenditure committees.

The investigation was launched after a state investigator in Horne's office, Margaret "Meg" Hinchey, obtained evidence of what appeared to be collusion while investigating office media leaks at Horne's request.

Through a public-records request, The Republic last week acquired documents from the investigative file totaling nearly 300 pages. The documents show:

Horne and Winn called each other 150 times in the weeks leading up to the 2010 general election. The number and duration of the calls spiked between Oct. 20 and Oct. 28, when political consulting firm Lincoln Strategy Group was working with Winn's independent expenditure committee to create TV ads targeting Horne's Democratic opponent, Felecia Rotellini. In one case, Winn talked to Horne on the phone as she was e-mailing a political consultant at Lincoln about the ad.

Attorneys for Horne and Winn said Winn was advising him on a complicated real-estate transaction.

On Oct. 27, Brian Murray, a political consultant working with Winn on the anti-Rotellini TV ads, was so uncomfortable with Winn's contact with Horne that he notified an attorney for Lincoln. Murray wrote: "I warned her on numerous occasions that she needed to cease contact with the candidate and any agents of the campaign."

In a search-warrant affidavit, Maricopa County Attorney Investigations Division Commander Mark Stribling wrote that evidence showed that Horne and/or Winn may have broken the law in funding the committee from Aug. 25, 2010, through Nov. 2, 2010. He cited the state's criminal "fraudulent schemes and artifices" statute.

Maricopa County Presiding Criminal Court Judge Douglas Rayes approved Stribling's application for a search warrant for personal e-mails between Horne and Winn.

Deborrah Miller, a Horne campaign worker and Attorney General's Office employee, recalled that Winn visited Horne's campaign headquarters during the 2010 general election, while she was chairing the independent expenditure committee.

Horne's spokeswoman, Amy Rezzonico, sought "use immunity" from the County Attorney's Office in exchange for information she would provide to the FBI. Such immunity is typically used in criminal investigations. Her attorney sought to lay ground rules for investigators to interview her regarding Horne's campaign and the independent expenditure committee. It is unclear if the request was granted.

Horne has said the charges against him are "totally false." In an e-mail statement Friday, his office said the law permits candidates and people running independent expenditure committees to have contact "so long as there is no coordination or direction of the expenditure by the candidate, which there was not in this case. This will be completely proven to be true during the legal process." The episode "has not and will not interfere with the important work he is doing as Attorney General," the statement said.

Winn told The Republic she did nothing wrong. She said she was not interviewed during the investigation even though she's "the only one that knows what happened."

"I think that someone should ask the question: Why the FBI is following Tom Horne around on something that happened in 2010? ... What does that have to do with an alleged violation of campaign finance?" she said. "This isn't about me, this is about Tom Horne, and this is about sending a message to Tom Horne to not run for governor."

Winn said she wouldn't comment further until she receives Montgomery's formal charging document.

Winn created the independent expenditure committee, Business Leaders for Arizona, to raise money to oppose former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, a Republican who was running against Horne in the 2010 primary. The committee raised large donations in late October 2010 as Horne and Rotellini were running neck and neck. The committee, headquartered at Winn's Mesa address, raised $512,500 in nine days to fund anti-Rotellini TV ads.

The records also show attorneys for Horne and Winn criticized the investigation.

Horne would not speak with investigators based on advice from his attorney, Michael Kimerer, who criticized the FBI's investigative tactics, saying investigators used "coercive and misleading interview techniques" and that they engaged in "unauthorized surveillance" of Horne.

Winn's attorney, Larry Debus, criticized agents for questioning witnesses about salacious allegations of a love triangle allegedly involving Horne and two female employees.

Debus also hounded the County Attorney's Office over federal investigators' behavior and sent e-mails defending Winn's involvement in the committee. He questioned between February and August why a criminal probe was necessary for an alleged civil violation and challenged the scope of the investigation. Keppel's notes

The notes from Keppel, a 44-year career prosecutor and judge, provide a window into the case against Horne and offer perspective on how Horne and his inner circle reacted to potential media leaks and the FBI investigation. Keppel declined to comment, but said his notes accurately reflect events.

He was interviewed by the FBI in February and abruptly resigned from the Attorney General's Office in March. He has told The Republic he resigned over the FBI investigation and the way some people within the Attorney General's Office responded to it.

His notes allege that Horne obstructed the internal investigation Horne instigated into potential leaks to the media. According to Keppel, Horne would not allow supervising special agent Hinchey to interview Winn.

Horne said if Winn were to be interviewed, he should do it, Keppel wrote. During one discussion, Horne's top staff asked what he would do if it was determined Winn was involved in the alleged leaks. Horne said, "I can't fire her. She can really hurt me." In another conversation, Horne reportedly said he didn't "want to upset" Winn, when Hinchey again asked to interview her.

Last December, the notes stated, Deputy Attorney General Eric "Rick" Bistrow, a longtime Horne ally and Horne's chief of staff, asked Keppel if Hinchey's internal notes could "be destroyed/removed" from her computer. When Keppel told him they might be public records and therefore could not be destroyed, Bistrow asked what Hinchey would say about it.

"I told him she would not do it," Keppel wrote.

Bistrow then asked if the records could be considered drafts, or placed in Winn's personnel file to prevent them from becoming public.

The next day, Bistrow in a meeting said the internal-leak probe needed to end and it appeared Winn was involved, but "We all know nothing will happen."

Bistrow has denied all allegations of illegal and unethical behavior. Bistrow has acknowledged he raised questions to Keppel as to whether the investigative file was a public record, whether they could be considered "drafts" and whether parts could be "excised" because the file contains "scandalous stuff" that could "hurt a lot of people."

A civil case

Federal and local investigators spent more than a year pursuing a criminal investigation into Horne and Winn, but when it came time to resolve the case, Montgomery, the county attorney, chose to bring civil charges against Horne and Winn.

During the investigation, Stribling and FBI Special Agents Brian Grehoski and Merv Mason used criminal investigative techniques to build a case against Horne and Winn, documents acquired by The Republic show.

Investigators put Horne, the state's top prosecutor, under surveillance, trailing him as he met a female assistant attorney general and drove together to her residence, where the FBI witnessed their involvement in a minor hit-and-run.

Through search warrants, investigators obtained personal e-mails between Horne and Winn. Through grand-jury subpoenas, investigators obtained a history of their phone calls, bank records and other information.

In the end, Montgomery said state criminal statutes don't specifically address the alleged coordination between Horne and Winn. Instead, Montgomery will pursue civil enforcement action, which could force Horne and Winn to repay an estimated $400,000 to contributors. If they refuse, Horne and Winn could be forced to pay penalties of more than $1 million.

Privately, some lawyers and prosecutors have criticized Montgomery for his decision to pursue civil action, saying the evidence clearly shows Horne and Winn attempted to defraud Arizona voters.

Asked why investigators would pursue a criminal track in the investigation if the case was based solely on a civil matter, Montgomery responded that there was no restriction on the scope of the investigation early on, and that the FBI followed leads wherever they went. "There was no way to know at the outset if the investigation would eventually encompass both civil and criminal conduct or only one or the other," Montgomery said in an e-mail.

Retired Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Fields pointed out that prosecutors have wide discretion when determining what to charge. He said prosecutors pursue cases involving public officials cautiously and that Montgomery may have learned a lesson from his predecessor, former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, whose political and legal careers were destroyed by his failed pursuit of corruption- and financial-related charges against public officials.

There may be other reasons, Fields said. "There may be some indication of criminal conduct, but not enough to seek a criminal indictment. Montgomery may just be making a decision that the case is not strong enough to proceed."

ASU law professor Zig Popko said political considerations may have partially influenced Montgomery's decision. Popko noted that a criminal case against Horne could last three to five years, which would run into the 2014 election cycle when Horne, a Republican, would be up for re-election. Montgomery, also a Republican, would be in the middle of a four-year term at that point and could be running for another office.

Popko added that Montgomery may have made his decision based on the "sensitivity of prosecuting a sitting attorney general." He said Horne could settle without admitting guilt.

Montgomery said politics had nothing to do with his charging decision.

"Political considerations have no place in my decision-making process when it comes to enforcing our laws, and they played no role whatsoever in this matter. Zip, nada," Montgomery said. "It has been my earnest intent to keep politics out of administering my responsibilities in the criminal justice system and to the same degree in civil matters."

Arizona AG Tom Horne is a crook???

Source

File: Staff politics worried Tom Horne

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

The Republic | azcentral.com

Tue Oct 9, 2012 11:54 PM

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne was preoccupied with the political loyalty of his employees from the day he took office and hired dozens of faithful employees from the state Education Department, according to new investigative records obtained by The Arizona Republic.

Horne and his chief of staff, Eric “Rick” Bistrow, have repeatedly said politics play no role in the Attorney General’s Office, essentially the state’s largest law firm.

But one former employee told county and federal investigators that Horne, a Republican, kept lists of employees’ political affiliations and campaign contributions to his Democratic opponent and directed staff to hire dozens of supporters and prior employees.

Horne said Tuesday that the statements by Susan Schmaltz, his former human-resources adviser, are “utterly false.” He said he never had lists of employee party affiliations, nor did he track employee contributions to his Democratic opponent.

“I never asked her about people’s political affiliations,” he said. “I’ve promoted people that I’ve known to be Democrats.”

Schmaltz’s recollections of Horne’s activities are contained in a June 14 transcript of an interview with two FBI special agents and a Maricopa County Attorney’s Office investigations commander.

The transcript was part of nearly 3,300 pages of investigative documents that included witness interviews, bank records, subpoenas and other material that agents used to build a campaign-finance case against Horne and one of his employees. The Republic acquired the file through a public-records request.

Schmaltz told investigators that Horne had her double- and triple-fill positions, put employees in jobs they were not qualified for and pay them more than what the positions allowed.

Horne and employee Kathleen Winn are accused of illegally coordinating with an independent expenditure committee during the 2010 election to circumvent campaign-finance laws.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery is pursuing a civil enforcement action against Horne and Winn, who chaired the committee and then went to work as Horne’s director of community outreach. Horne and Winn have said they’ve done nothing wrong.

When Schmaltz raised concerns about Winn’s background, which included allegations of check fraud, she said Horne said, “(Winn) had been instrumental in raising a lot of money for my campaign,” and he wanted her hired.

Schmaltz worked as the employee services division director under then-Democratic Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. She continued in that position until shortly after Horne took office. Horne brought his human-resources director, Debbie Jackson, from the Department of Education, where Horne had served for eight years.

Schmaltz told investigators that Horne then named her his human-resources adviser and allowed her to keep her salary. She made about $87,000. She said she left the office last year after becoming “extremely uncomfortable” with the way Horne ran the agency. A longtime independent, she disclosed to investigators she voted in 2010 for Horne’s Democratic opponent, Felecia Rotellini, and was growing increasingly worried as Horne continued to ask questions about staff’s political leanings.

“I was requested and required to appear before the FBI to give information. I did so as requested,” Schmaltz told The Republic. She now works at a major accounting firm.

She said she answered questions “truthfully and honestly.” She declined to comment further.

Schmaltz also told investigators:

Within the first week of taking office, Horne expressed concerns about staff who had raised or given money to his opponent. “He was concerned that he’d have people within the office that … would not be loyal to him.” Horne continued to ask questions about subordinates’ political affiliations and inquired about specific employees.

About two months after Schmaltz resigned, Horne asked her to lunch to talk about potential leaks by employees to the media. At that lunch, he brought with him a list of employees who contributed money to Rotellini and a list of employees and their political affiliations that he “wanted to kind of go through.”

Horne went through some names, and Schmaltz said she told him, “This isn’t something you need to really be concerning yourself with.”

During her tenure with Horne, Schmaltz said, he repeatedly asked her about documents memorializing an exit interview in which one former employee allegedly voiced a negative experience working with Rotellini, a former assistant attorney general. Schmaltz told investigators the interviews are supposed to be confidential.

During their lunch, Horne again asked her about the exit interview and if she recalled the employee’s name.

Schmaltz told investigators Horne wanted the information “Because he said Felicia’s (sic) gonna run again in a few years and I want to have that information.”

Horne acknowledged Tuesday that the two spoke of the exit interview but said Schmaltz brought up the subject.

Shortly after Horne was elected, more than 40 employees showed up at the Attorney General’s Office, and “pretty much everyone would come in saying, ‘Tom Horne promised me a job,’” Schmaltz said.

She said she was asked to place people in positions they weren’t qualified for, “and we’re bringing people in from the Department of Ed who have no legal secretary experience, have no paralegal experience. We’re throwing them into paralegal positions, throwing them into all of these other positions, and we’re paying them more money than what the position’s coded for” through the state Department of Administration.

When she raised issues with state administrators, she was told they talked to Horne and his new human-resources director, “and now, we were not to worry about ’em.”

Schmaltz said Jackson gave her a list of people to find positions for. “And — and what she did is she gave me the list of — here’s the salary that they’re gonna make. Let’s find a position. Which is not normally how it works,” Schmaltz said.

Schmaltz said the hirings came at a time when the Attorney General’s Office, like most state agencies, was pinching resources and reeling from staff reductions and budget cuts.

Schmaltz also talked to investigators about Horne’s relationships with Winn and Carmen Chenal, an assistant attorney general and longtime Horne confidant.

Schmaltz said the relationship between Winn and Chenal was fractured at the time of her departure. Schmaltz recalled Chenal telling her that during the campaign the three got along great and were “like the Three Musketeers.”

It is common for elected officials to bring staff with them to their new jobs, especially in key government positions.

Horne was asked at an April news conference how many employees he brought with him to the agency. He replied that he brought “about 20” from the Education Department.

“They were placed in their areas of competence and, in fact, they’ve received very high marks from their co-workers,” he said.

Officials with the state Department of Administration said that prior to a recent overhaul of the personnel system, agencies were able to hire additional staff without vacancies with approval by state administrators. Officials said it is up to agencies to determine whether applicants are qualified for positions.

Kathy Peckardt, the state’s human- resources director, said no employee within the Attorney General’s Office is making more than the maximum allowed by pay ranges.

Horne’s spokeswoman disputed that Horne cared about the politics of employees.

“Whether Tom carried a list around or not, I don’t believe that to be true,” Amy Rezzonico said. “But anybody who made a contribution to Felecia’s or Tom Horne’s campaign is a matter of public record.”

Rezzonico, who was also interviewed by investigators, said Horne did not hire or fire based on politics. “This is hearsay, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t even understand why the FBI was asking this person questions — how does this relate to an (independent expenditure committee)?”

Rezzonico said Horne may have been asking about employees because he “perceived” those people didn’t like changes he was making to the agency.

Employment lawyers said it is unwise for supervisors to ask about employees’ political affiliations because it could prompt discrimination and other claims. Questions could leave the impression that decisions are being made based on politics, not performance.

“If someone has collected this information for their own curiosity to just know what this person’s political view is, that might be OK,” employment attorney David Selden said.

“But you’re in the AG’s Office and prosecuting crimes, so I don’t know that it should matter who Republicans and Democrats are giving money to. Possessing the information isn’t a wise thing to do because the risk is: What did you do with the information, and why did you want to know?”

Campaign-finance accusations may hurt Horne career

I bet that was a smoke screen to cover up for all the illegal activities he has been doing.

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Campaign-finance accusations may hurt Horne career

By Dan Nowicki, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Mary Jo Pitzl The Republic | azcentral.com

Sun Oct 14, 2012 1:28 AM

He’s been investigated by the FBI, formally accused of violating campaign-finance laws and may have to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations or more than a million in penalties.

He’s been accused of hiring unqualified cronies and politicizing the top law-enforcement office in Arizona. He’s under investigation in a possible hit-and-run of a parked vehicle.

Political experts and even some Republicans say the publicity from a lingering scandal could end Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne’s political ambitions — especially if he attempts a run for governor in 2014 as has long been rumored.

“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I will say that you are the head law-enforcement officer of the state and you are expected to obey the law just like you expect everybody else to,” said Bob Corbin, a Republican who was Arizona attorney general from 1979 to 1991 and who endorsed Andrew Thomas, Horne’s GOP primary rival, in 2010. “It’s always going to come up. Even if there are no charges brought or anything like that, there’s always the allegation. Sometimes the allegations are worse than the convictions.”

Horne, a Republican, says he is innocent and vows to fight the accusations of campaign-finance-law violations that Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, another Republican, laid out Oct. 1 when announcing plans for a civil-enforcement action. Horne also says he has no plans to resign his post as the No. 3 Republican in state government, and there’s been no outcry for him to step down.

Horne, a former state legislator and state superintendent of public instruction, is accused of illegally coordinating with an outside group, Business Leaders for Arizona, to finance television advertising against his Democratic opponent, Felecia Rotellini, during the 2010 general election. Montgomery also will pursue civil-enforcement action against Kathleen Winn, who chaired the committee and now works in a top position for Horne.

FBI agents also say they witnessed a hit-and-run accident involving Horne that Phoenix police are investigating.

It’s unclear how long it would take for the civil action to play out. Horne’s decision to fight the allegations in court could stretch the drama well into next year — when some candidates will likely begin to campaign for governor.

Documents show the case against Horne and Winn was investigated asboth a civil and potential criminal matter. Federal agents also researched federal wire-fraud charges since a large portion of the donations to the independent-expenditure committee came from out-of-state and crossed state lines.

Montgomery declined to press criminal charges against Horne and Winn, saying criminal statutes don’t specifically address their alleged coordination.

Instead, Montgomery will pursue civil-enforcement action, which could force Horne and Winn to repay money to contributors or pay penalties of more than $1 million.

State GOP leaders could try to pressure Horne to step down or the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature could move to impeach and remove him — as happened 24 years ago with former Republican Gov. Evan Mecham — though neither scenario is viewed as likely.

But by doing nothing, Republicans could allow a festering Horne controversy to damage the GOP brand in the run-up to a crucial election.

Party push-back

Mecham’s impeachment represents the best-known instance in which top Arizona Republicans took an aggressive stand against a major elected official in their own party.

The Republican-led Legislature in 1988 impeached and removed Mecham, a gaffe-prone Republican outsider elected in 1986 who proved an embarrassment to the GOP. He was impeached on allegations that he misused state money and obstructed the investigation of a death threat to a government official. He also was indicted on charges that he tried to conceal a campaign loan from a developer, but was later acquitted.

Retired U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater and his successor, U.S. Sen. John McCain, were among state Republican leaders who called on Mecham to quit. The decision to take on Mecham backfired on some GOP legislators, including House Speaker Joe Lane of Willcox and Senate President Carl Kunasek of Mesa, who lost their seats in the aftermath.

In a more recent example, Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim Irvin resigned in 2003 as Republican lawmakers were taking steps to impeach him for alleged gross misconduct in office. All four of his commission colleagues had demanded his resignation. A federal jury had concluded that Irvin had sabotaged a utility takeover and socked him with a $60 million punitive judgment. That penalty eventually was reduced on appeal to $1.19 million, which the Arizona Supreme Court in 2011 required a private insurance company to pick up.

In other high-profile episodes, Republicans have been less inclined to try to force fellow party members out of office amid controversy.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio felt no pressure from Republican leaders while under investigation for alleged abuses of power; federal prosecutors announced in late August that they would not be pursuing criminal charges.

Former U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., finished out his final term while indicted on federal corruption charges. He is still awaiting trial.

Former Republican Gov. Fife Symington resigned in 1997 after he was convicted on bank-fraud charges. Before that, there were scattered GOP calls for him to step down but no concerted effort as was seen with Mecham. Symington’s conviction was overturned, and a 2001 pardon from then-President Bill Clinton ensured that federal prosecutors would not refile charges against him.

“Not to say Tom Horne does not have enemies within the Republican Party, but it’s nothing like what Mecham had way back in the day,” said Rodolfo Espino, an assistant professor of political science at Arizona State University. “I think the likelihood of impeachment is rather low. What’s more likely, if anything, is that certain Republican leaders just say to him, ‘Look, deal with this. Step down. You’re going to hurt some other Republicans running for office right now.’”

To date, Republican officials have generally said they are not privy to evidence and other details of alleged ethical misconduct within Horne’s office.

Romney’s national campaign did not respond to The Arizona Republic’s requests for comment on Horne’s situation.

Veteran U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, a three-term Republican who is is not seeking re-election this year, declined to comment on the specifics of the Horne case but praised Montgomery for his professional handling of the investigation thus far. Speaking generally, Kyl, a lawyer who as an Arizona congressman had joined McCain in calling for Mecham to step down, said that even without criminal charges, voters certainly take such alleged legal violations into account “when they decide whether to support someone in the future.”

Symington said Horne should not resign regardless of who may call for it. In retrospect, the Mecham impeachment looks politically motivated and premature, Symington said.

“He’s fought hard for the office,” Symington said of Horne. “He’s sustaining some pretty severe attacks and seems to be handling them pretty well at this point. He still has a few years to go as the attorney general of this state and has lots of time to recover, to win his fights and run again.”

From his own experience, Symington added this: “When you’re in the middle of the storm, it’s hard to see the horizon, but it’s out there, and there’s always a better day.”

Democrats have stayed out of the fray, save for state Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix, who called for Horne’s resignation the same day Montgomery made his announcement.

Democrats have had their share of scandals this year, with three Democratic lawmakers resigning because of scandal. When state Rep. Ben Arredondo, D-Tempe, was hit with federal felony charges, fellow Tempe resident and Senate Minority Leader David Schapira called for Arredondo to step down, which he later did.

And when state Rep. Daniel Patterson of Tucson was named in several domestic-violence complaints, House Minority Leader Chad Campbell called for his resignation and House Democrats signed a petition seeking an ethics investigation. Patterson resigned under pressure; a court later acquitted him of all the charges.

State Rep. Richard Miranda, D-Phoenix, resigned a few days before federal felony charges were entered against him. Fellow lawmakers said they had no idea he was under investigation.

Republicans kept silent as the Democrats’ woes unfurled.

An outsider

Horne is a bit of an outsider among his party’s high-profile politicians. He was a Democrat for years, switching his party registration to GOP in the 1990s when he made his first run for the Legislature.

GOP leaders are clearly aware of Horne’s political radioactivity: He was conspicuously missing from Arizona’s delegation to the Republican National Convention in Florida.

His relationship with Gov. Jan Brewer, who enjoys rock-star status among conservatives in Arizona and across the nation, has been publicly prickly.

Grant Woods, a former Republican Arizona attorney general who served under three governors and now unofficially advises Brewer, said the governor and Horne haven’t had “a particularly close relationship.” Woods could not point to any one incident that affected the relationship.

“I’ve just noticed from the beginning it has never been a close relationship,” he said. “I think that, for whatever reason, he’s never gained her confidence. Consequently, she never seemed to involve him much.”

Asked what Horne’s political challenges have been, Woods responded, “His longevity really worked against him because he’s run for and held a lot of offices and being that political and ambitious leaves a lot of people mad at you who you have defeated or rubbed the wrong way.”

Views on future

Republican political consultants have differing viewpoints on Horne’s future political prospects.

Horne might be able to salvage his current term in office, but his longer-range future is dim, said Jason Rose, who worked for the rival Thomas campaign in 2010 but subsequently became a Horne supporter.

“I think it’s bleak on his best day,” Rose said. “When following the law is your primary responsibility, it cuts to the heart of his credibility.”

Other political observers suggested it is premature to write off Horne.

Chuck Coughlin, a Brewer confidant who has advised numerous statewide candidates, said the campaign charges could hamper a Horne gubernatorial bid but wouldn’t necessarily end his career as attorney general. He pointed to the recent scandal involving Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, who was accused by a former boyfriend of abusing the power of his office. The Attorney General’s Office cleared Babeu, who had abandoned his congressional campaign but was able to pivot and win the primary for sheriff and is favored in the general election.

“The conventional wisdom is don’t seek a different office, run back to safe territory,” Coughlin said.

And with nearly two years left in office, Horne has the time and ability to drive the narrative about his tenure, Coughlin said.

The civil-enforcement action filed Oct. 1 against Horne is simply allegations at this point, Coughlin said. If the case remains open as 2014 rolls around, “it’s he said/she said stuff.”

Barry Aarons, a lobbyist and former Symington aide, has been friends with Horne for more than two decades.

He has watched Horne climb through the years from Paradise Valley school-board member to state lawmaker, state schools superintendent and, now, attorney general.

“If you look at his career, I think you find that everywhere he’s gone, every step along the way, he has done a lot, he has accomplished a lot,” Aarons said. “People who don’t like you call you ‘blindly ambitious.’ People who like you call you ‘focused.’”

Asked for his reaction to Montgomery’s finding that Horne deliberately violated campaign-finance laws, Aarons responded, “I find it difficult to believe that he would have intentionally violated the law.”

Aarons added that if Montgomery’s statements prove true, Horne “will have explaining to do, and those people who have been his supporters are going to have to listen real carefully to how he explains it away.”

Tom Horne ordered to refund illegal campaign contributions

Source

Order issued in Horne campaign finance case

Posted: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 9:58 am

Associated Press

A prosecutor is ordering Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne to report and refund hundreds of thousands of dollars of allegedly illegal campaign contributions benefiting Horne’s 2010 election campaign.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s compliance order alleges that Horne and his campaign violated campaign finance laws by discussing and coordinating election strategy with a pro-Horne group that was supposedly operating independently.

The order is the result of an FBI investigation and subsequent review by Montgomery’s office. Montgomery on Oct. 1 announced he would pursue civil penalties against Horne, his campaign and Horne supporter Kathleen Winn’s group.

Horne and Winn have denied coordination between her group and his campaign.

Horne declined to comment Tuesday after Montgomery released the order under a public records request by The Associated Press.

Montgomery tells Horne to pay back election cash

Montgomery tells Horne to pay back election cash

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Sat Oct 20, 2012 1:10 AM

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery is ordering Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and an employee to accurately report and refund hundreds of thousands of dollars of alleged illegal campaign donations.

The Oct. 11 compliance order, released to the media this week, reiterates allegations by county prosecutors and federal investigators that Horne violated state laws by coordinating election tactics with an independent-expenditure committee chaired by Kathleen Winn, now a top Horne staffer.

Horne and Winn on Friday filed a written response to the order, providing their evidence as to why they did not act improperly. The response states they were allowed to communicate as long as they did not talk about the independent-expenditure committee. They maintain that they did not discuss the committee.

Horne, in an e-mail to The Arizona Republic, said the entire case is based on “misleading speculation.”

“There is no direct evidence of coordination, because there was none,” Horne said.

Horne and Winn have until Nov. 5 to amend the 2010 election reports and pay back an estimated $400,000 in contributions made to the independent-expenditure committee. If they do not comply with the order, Montgomery will issue an order assessing civil penalties, which could exceed $1 million.

Horne and Winn can request an informal closed-door settlement meeting, or appeal. If they appeal, the case will be assigned to a Maricopa County Superior Court judge and, like with any civil case, proceedings will be public.

The order stems from a 14-month joint FBI and County Attorney’s Office investigation that culminated earlier this month when Montgomery announced he would pursue civil penalties instead of criminal action.

Investigators found Horne and Winn deliberately broke campaign-finance laws during the 2010 general election, when Horne allegedly collaborated with Business Leaders for Arizona to quickly raise more than $500,000 to run negative ads against his Democratic opponent, Felecia Rotellini.

The county’s 20-page compliance order, obtained by The Arizona Republic through a public-records request, reiterated the FBI and county evidence that Horne and Winn illegally worked together to receive contributions and buy ads to defeat Rotellini. The order states that Horne directed contributions to Winn, discussed fundraising for the committee and directed how the money should be spent. The order also contained new references to numerous e-mails from the 2010 general election in which Winn and Horne are included in exchanges regarding campaign meetings, strategy and newspaper articles written about the election.

Following Montgomery’s Oct. 1 announcement, The Republic reviewed nearly 3,300 pages of documents that describe the extent of the investigation through witness interviews, e-mails, subpoenas, phone logs and other records.

Investigators grilled witnesses about their recollections of Horne and Winn’s alleged involvement in the committee and pieced together evidence they believe proves: Horne helped direct the committee’s fundraising and messaging; Winn continued her involvement in Horne’s campaign while running the committee; and Winn raised and spent money through the committee while she maintained constant contact with Horne.

Investigators also focused on witnesses’ recollections of Horne’s response to learning of the FBI inquiry and his repeated attempts to learn what they knew.

Witnesses described to investigators a sorority-type environment at the Attorney General’s Office. Some women were described as a “harem” of “Horne-ites” who vied for the politician’s attention. One witness said another witness was directed to Horne’s office to tell him about her FBI interview while another female worker gave Horne a massage.

Witnesses said they were uncomfortable with Winn’s abrupt arrival in Horne’s primary campaign while he was still superintendent of education. One said she did not understand why “he listened to her above all else.”

Horne’s criminal investigator, Margaret “Meg” Hinchey, described a conversation in which Horne asked her and her boss, Andy Rubalcava, if he could tell them about a possible crime with the promise that they would not investigate it.

The investigative file shows:

Witnesses said Amy Rezzonico, Horne’s longtime spokeswoman, told them Horne put Winn in charge of the independent-expenditure committee because she “was pushing back and resisting taking direction” from Carmen Chenal, a longtime Horne confidante and employee. Rezzonico said, “And so, as a way for AG Horne to ‘separate’ the two women, he told Winn, ‘You go do this independent expenditure and take care of this money for me.’”

At a 2010 primary-victory party, Horne’s California brother-in-law, Richard Newman, asked Horne if there was anything he could do to help during the general election. Horne directed Newman to talk to Winn, who was also at the party. “Well, I know Tom said that it was — it was an independent committee,” Newman told investigators.

Newman donated $115,000 total to the committee. In the days leading up to an initial $15,000 donation, investigators said phone records showed more frequent communication between Horne and his sister and between Horne and Newman. After Newman’s first $15,000 check did not arrive as quickly as it was needed, he sent a second check. That check “was delivered to Tom’s home and left” near the front door, according to an Oct. 21, 2010 e-mail to Newman from his assistant.

Lucia de Vernai, an attorney general’s legal assistant, told investigators that Winn talked openly to Horne’s campaign workers about her involvement with the independent-expenditure committee in the weeks following the primary and intensified in October 2010. De Vernai said Winn would stop by Horne’s campaign headquarters and “talk to Tom, you know, kind of in the corner.”

Former Assistant Attorney General Ron Lebowitz said he believed Winn was working with Horne’s campaign in October 2010 when she came to Lebowitz’s house to pick up an $840 check. Lebowitz said Winn told him to make the check payable to the independent-expenditure committee and told him the maximum amount he could donate was $840 — the same limit for an individual donating to a candidate.

Sharon Collins, who runs Horne’s Tucson office, was concerned by Horne’s reaction to learning the FBI contacted independent-expenditure committee donor Chuck Diaz. While at a Feb. 10 Sierra Vista event with the attorney general and his wife, Horne said he thought the Obama administration “was going after him” and wanted to know exactly what Diaz had told Collins.

Collins described a conversation with Horne in which she said, “Do, ah, did you want me to call Chuck?” She said Horne replied, “Just wait till he talks to his lawyer, you might need a script.” When FBI agents pressed her on why Diaz would need a script, she replied, “To say the right thing.”

Collins also reported that Horne wanted her to call Diaz after his meeting with the FBI, but Collins said she and Winn told Horne that was not a good idea.

Michael Vargas, Horne’s 2010 campaign manager, said Horne after the primary asked Vargas which political-consulting firms he would recommend if Winn were to run an independent committee. Vargas recommended Brian Murray of Lincoln Strategy Group, his former employer. Winn later contacted Murray and hired the firm.

Murray told investigators he repeatedly told Winn to avoid talking to Horne about independent-expenditure committee activities. Murray was so uncomfortable with the pair’s contact that he notified an attorney for Lincoln.

Murray said Horne earlier this year asked to meet at a downtown diner. Murray thought the meeting was to discuss political activities, but Horne wanted him to describe why his relationship with Winn had soured and pressed Murray to “dig deeper” to recall if there were activities from the 2010 cycle that were “expressly illegal.” Horne told Murray the FBI would likely contact him; Murray promised to give him a heads-up if that happened.

Hinchey’s notes said that on Oct. 7, 2011, Horne asked her and her boss, Rubalcava, if he could tell them about something he may have learned as a result of someone listening to another person’s phone call in the office. The investigators said there could be potential criminal implications. “He said he knew that and thus wanted to ask Rubalcava and I if we would promise not to investigate or report it as a crime,” Hinchey wrote.

Hinchey and Rubalcava said they could not because it would violate their oaths as law-enforcement officers. Hinchey wrote that she told Horne, “I also advised AG Horne that if he, as the top law-enforcement officer in the state, knew of a possible crime and withheld that information, it would not look good for him or be a good idea.”

Horne later dropped the issue.

Horne and Winn, in their response, offer context to some of the e-mails, phone calls and conversations the county has cited as evidence of coordination.

The response repeated their earlier statements that their phone communication spiked in late October 2010 because Winn, who has an extensive real-estate background, was helping Horne with the complicated sale and purchase of commercial-shopping centers.

“Winn and Horne knew that they could not discuss the independent campaign, and they rigorously avoided any such conversation,” the response states. “After the closing on Oct. 28, phone calls between them dropped off sharply.”

The county has offered as evidence that Horne and Winn were on the phone as she was e-mailing Murray about a Rotellini attack ad. In their response, Horne and Winn deny that allegation, saying the phone call was unrelated to the campaign. They also said Winn did not send Murray a response until two minutes after the phone call ended.

The response points out that federal and state investigations have no evidence to support that Horne and Winn were talking about the independent-expenditure committee.

“She had First Amendment rights to converse with the candidate, as long as they did not discuss the independent expenditure, which they did not do,” the response states.

Some e-mails involving Winn and Horne, according to the response, addressed committee contributions but not expenditures. To violate state law, according to the response, “the coordination or direction must be with respect to how they money is spent or the content of the ad, not with respect to contributions.”

The response notes that Horne sent Winn an e-mail on Oct. 27 suggesting that Winn try to get more money from the Republican State Leadership Committee but states that there was no violation because Winn did not act on the suggestion.

“Coordination is a two-way street,” the response states.

The response also says Horne did not refer anyone to donate to the independent campaign, did not suggest potential donors to Winn and did not speak to anyone about making contributions to an independent campaign.

The response also includes an affidavit from Winn, in which she states that there was no coordination.

“I took no instruction from anyone and specifically no instruction from Mr. Horne or any of his campaign staff or advisers,” Winn said in the affidavit.

Attorney General Tom Horne blocked embarrassing info???

Source

Arizona AG's office blocked embarrassing info

Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

Posted: Sunday, October 21, 2012 12:15 pm

Associated Press

The Arizona Attorney General's Office redacted embarrassing information in a release of hundreds of documents from an internal probe over suspected media leaks.

The Arizona Capitol Times reports (http://bit.ly/QwRnaY) that censored material included rumors of sexual affairs between Attorney General Tom Horne and a subordinate, questions about a key ally's conduct at work and disparaging comments about the ally, who is entangled with him in alleged campaign finance violations.

Horne's office in August released investigator Margaret Hinchey's case file into the suspected leaks. The file included memos outlining Hinchey's interviews with eight Attorney General's Office employees.

Those memos were heavily censored, with large chunks of text blotted out. But when the Maricopa County Attorney's Office released documents from a joint investigation with the FBI into alleged campaign violations by Horne and ally Kathleen Winn, the file included the memos in their entirety.

Attorneys who specialize in First Amendment issues say there are several reasons why a government agency can withhold information from public records. However, attorneys say the fact that something is potentially embarrassing to a public official isn't one of them.

Solicitor General David Cole responded that the redactions were based on a 1984 Arizona Supreme Court ruling stating that information can be withheld on grounds of privacy, confidentiality or the best interests of the state.

"In responding to public records requests, it is the policy of this office to redact information that is known to be defamatory and false. It is also the policy of this office to redact extraneous gossip, innuendo, rumors, and hurtful remarks that have nothing to do with the legitimate functions of the agency and that can cause damage to individuals and the agency. Our practices comport with Arizona law," Cole said in an email to the Capitol Times.

Horne launched the internal investigation in 2011 after the Phoenix New Times submitted public records requests regarding Carmen Chenal, who is in charge of foreign extraditions at the Attorney General's Office, and wrote about Horne's hiring of her.

Perhaps the most damaging redacted information is about an alleged affair between Horne, who is married, and Chenal, a former law partner who worked for him at the Arizona Department of Education.

Horne hired Chenal for a six-figure job, despite a spotty record that included the loss of her law license, which she got back with his help. According to Hinchey and the FBI's interviews with employees at the Attorney General's Office, Winn often exhibited jealousy of Chenal and other female colleagues she perceived as being close to Horne.

Horne did not respond to an email and a voicemail message from the Capitol Times inquiring about the rumored affair with Chenal. Horne has refused to answer the question when asked by other media outlets.

In an email to The Associated Press, Arizona Solicitor General Dave Cole said state officials redacted information because of privacy, confidentiality, and the "best interests of the state."

"In responding to public records requests, it is the policy of this office to redact information that is known to be defamatory and false," Cole wrote. "It is also the policy of this office to redact extraneous gossip, innuendo, rumors, and hurtful remarks that have nothing to do with the legitimate functions of the agency and that can cause damage to individuals and the agency. Our practices comport with Arizona law."

AG Tom Horne redacts anything that makes him look bad???

Source

Redacted parts of AG Office documents allege impropriety

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:34 AM

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office redacted allegations about an alleged affair between Tom Horne and one of his subordinates, and disparaging information about another employee and political ally, a comparison of documents shows.

The redactions could violate state public-records law, some legal experts say.

The Arizona Public Records Law requires state and local government agencies to make various public records open for inspection by any person unless it is confidential by law, or if privacy interests outweigh the public’s interest or if disclosure is not in the state’s best interest.

The Attorney General’s Office in August produced for The Arizona Republic and other media hundreds of records that stemmed from a 2011 internal investigation Horne ordered into suspected media leaks. The records included eight memos — some with large areas redacted — summarizing interviews of attorney-general employees by Horne’s investigator, Margaret “Meg” Hinchey.

Earlier this month, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office produced unredacted versions of six Hinchey memos as part of the records it released tied to an investigation into alleged campaign-finance violations by Horne and his employee Kathleen Winn. County Attorney Bill Montgomery has accused the pair of illegally coordinating tactics during the 2010 election with an independent-expenditure committee Winn chaired. Horne and Winn deny the allegations and have vowed to fight them in court.

A comparison of the two versions of six memos shows the Attorney General’s Office redacted information about an alleged personal relationship between Horne, a married man, and Assistant Attorney General Carmen Chenal, a long-time Horne employee and confidant.

The office also redacted an employee statement that focused on Winn performing private work on government time — a practice that Horne personally sanctioned — as well as remarks witnesses made about Winn’s behavior.

When asked Monday if he would comment on the personal allegations against him, Horne responded via text, “Cole’s characterization is appropriate.”

Arizona Solicitor General David Cole, who oversaw the redactions, said “speculative, mean spirited, nasty gossip that can be false and that can be the subject of lawsuits for defamation does not serve the public interest.”

Chenal could not be reached for comment late Monday.

Winn said statements made by witnesses about her were false, describing one witness as “mentally unstable,” and Hinchey as a sloppy investigator who must not have fully understood witnesses’ statements.

Amy Rezzonico, Horne’s spokeswoman, said the redactions were consistent with state law, and based on privacy, confidentiality and the best interests of the state. In an e-mailed statement, she wrote it is office policy “to redact information that is known to be defamatory and false. It is also the policy of this office to redact extraneous gossip, innuendo, rumors, and hurtful remarks that have nothing to do with the legitimate functions of the agency and that can cause damage to individuals and the agency.”

First Amendment lawyers and experts, however, said the records shed light on the conduct of public officials and should not be redacted.

“The courts have consistently held that just because something is embarrassing to a public official does not mean that it should not be released as part of a public-records request,” said lawyer Dan Barr, who reviewed both versions of the memos. “The best interests of the state do not equate with the best interests of public officials.”

Lawyers also pointed to the attorney general’s own handbook, a guide for agencies to use when determining which documents are subject to public scrutiny under the Arizona Public Records Law. That handbook specifically cites one Arizona court, which found, “The cloak of confidentiality may not be used, however, to save an officer or public body from inconvenience or embarrassment.”

Cole, who reports to Horne, said Horne was not involved in deciding what information was redacted.

Cole wrote in an e-mail to The Republic that he has a public-records committee comprised of seasoned lawyers to ensure the agency follows the law. He cited case law that he believes shows his office acted properly in redacting the material.

Kathryn Marquoit, assistant ombudsman for public access at the state ombudsman’s office, has not reviewed the redactions. Generally, she said, agencies must find that it would be an invasion of privacy before it redacts such information.

“Just because it’s personal information doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an invasion of privacy,” she said, saying in this case, the agency appears to try to make a case that the information is not public because it does not deal with the public business.

“But I think that’s a tough argument to make,” she said.

In July 2011, Horne handpicked Hinchey to conduct a confidential internal investigation to determine if someone within the office had leaked information to the PhoenixNew Times regarding his hiring of Chenal despite a history of problems with her law license. Hinchey interviewed numerous employees, obtained access to staff phone records and e-mails, and searched Winn’s office once she became the suspected source of the leak.

The Attorney General’s Office’s redactions to Hinchey’s notes included:

Numerous references to an alleged affair between Horne and Chenal. Lucia de Vernai, a legal assistant, stated she heard Winn mention the rumor of an affair between Horne and Chenal five to ten times.

Assistant Attorney General Michael Flynn recalled another employee telling him about a video of Horne and Chenal walking together and that “Horne’s arms swung in a manner, that just prior to going off camera, that one might think AG Horne was about to give Chenal a ‘butt pat.’”

Numerous references to employees dislike of Winn because of her alleged “jealousy” of other women she perceived to be close to Horne, her alleged treatment of other employees and Winn’s alleged giddiness after the New Times wrote a story about the alleged affair between Horne and Chenal.

Linnea Heap, a collector in the agency, stated Winn made “snarky” comments about Heap’s friendship with Chenal and said Winn talked about being contacted by a reporter about “the rumor of an affair” between Chenal and Horne.

Heap also recalled a conversation with Winn during the 2010 campaign, according to the notes. “Heap indicated that she thinks Winn desires the attention and that it seems she is now trying to be ‘Mrs. AG,’” the notes stated.

Winn told The Republic she is happily married and is not jealous of any women at the office.

“I’m very secure in who I am,” she said. “I have a great relationship with the AG.”

De Vernai recalled a conversation she had with Winn, in which she said Winn stated, “C’mon. If Tom was going to have an affair, who do you think he would have one with? Carmen or me?”

De Vernai also recalled a dinner, where Winn told her, Chenal and one other woman, “I’m the new girlfriend. You’re the crabby old one.” De Vernai said the other woman, who helped out during the 2010 election, responded she would “arm wrestle” Winn for Horne.

Winn said she did not say that.

Numerous references to employees’ exasperation with Winn, whom one employee alleged inserts herself into work-related matters she was not qualified to handle. For example, Flynn was uncomfortable that Winn allegedly gave her personal cellphone number to a juvenile who sought her advice on an incident while attending a “sexting” lecture. “Flynn does not think Winn should have done that as she makes herself a witness to a crime and likely is not qualified to provide such ‘counseling,’” Hinchey’s notes read.

Flynn also told Hinchey he had the impression Winn thinks she is a “cop, an attorney and a counselor.” Hinchey wrote Flynn was aware of Winn “conducting her own investigation into some party level activity related to precinct party voting.”

Former Assistant Attorney General Gerald Richard told Hinchey that Winn once asked him to get Chenal to use her relationship with Horne to get Winn a raise. Winn earns an annual salary of about $100,000.

Winn said she does not recall that conversation.

De Vernai said she believed Winn, who has a real-estate-related background, “solicits employees” as clients, and that she has reported concerns about Winn twice to Horne who responded he “won’t fire her.”

Winn said she has never solicited work from employees. Records provided to The Republic in the past show Horne allowed Winn to perform private real-estate-related work on government time.

Tom Horne's office withholds public information to protect ... Tom Horne

Source

Tom Horne's office withholds public information to protect ... Tom Horne

By LAURIE ROBERTS

Mon, Oct 22 2012

We take you now to the latest in As the State Spins, the daytime drama starring everybody’s favorite attorney general, Tom Horne.

When we last left our story, we had learned that our hero was suspected of having an affair with an assistant attorney general he’d hired – a woman whose qualifications were, let’s just say, less than impressive. And, that Horne and another of his hires – a women who ran a supposedly independent campaign to help get him elected – have been accused of violating campaign-finance laws.

The state’s top law enforcement official has dodged accusations of an affair and denied trying to cheat his way into office by coordinating with a supposedly “independent” campaign that was pouring money into his 2010 election bid.

Which brings us to today’s episode: Public Records, Schmublic Records…. in which we learn that the Attorney General’s Office has been hiding records about embarrassing stuff. Things like his rumored affair with Assistant Attorney General Carmen Chenal and questions about the on-the-job conduct of Kathleen Winn, his campaign ally-turned-community-outreach-coordinator.

The story actually began in July 2011, when New Times columnist Stephen Lemons questioned why Horne would hire Chenal given that she had, among other things, long ago been suspended from practicing law.

(That is, until Horne helped her get her license back. She’s now on probation while serving as an assistant attorney general.)

Horne immediately launched an internal investigation. No, not to find out why his office was paying a six-figure salary to a woman who had questionable credentials, but to find the source of the leak to Lemons.

Instead, the investigator found evidence suggesting that Horne had violated state law by coordinating with Winn’s independent campaign. In August, Horne’s office released results of the leak investigation, as Arizona’s Public Records Law required. But the records were heavily censored.

Earlier this month, we found out why. That’s when Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, in announcing that Horne and Winn had violated campaign-finance laws, released a clean copy of the records.

Turns out all those pages blacked out by the Attorney General’s Office contained interviews with staffers who talked of Horne’s rumored long-time affair with Chenal. Of reports that Winn was calling herself Horne’s “new girlfriend” and “inserting herself” into cases where she had no business, given that she is neither an attorney nor an investigator. Of concerns that Winn was working on her mortgage broker business on state time.

Horne spokeswoman Amy Rezzonico said in an e-mail that the records were withheld “on the bases of privacy, confidentiality and best interests of the state.”

Indeed, the Arizona Supreme Court has said that records may be withheld “where recognition of the interests of privacy, confidentiality or the best interest of the state in carrying out its legitimate activities outweigh the general policy of open access.”

The court also has said the state must “specifically demonstrate how production of the documents would violate the rights of privacy or confidentiality or would be detrimental to the best interests of the state.”

The question here is, was Horne’s interest in keeping this stuff quiet in the best interest of the state? Or in the best interest of Horne?

Two experts on Arizona’s Public Records Law tell me there was no legitimate reason to withhold what were clearly public records.

“The courts have held that embarrassment for a public official is not a reason to redact information,” said attorney Dan Barr, who represents the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona.

Attorney David Bodney, who represents The Republic and 12News, called it “a risky overbroad approach to public information that prohibits the ability of the public to monitor the conduct.”

The people who control the information, however, seem to think it’s perfectly acceptable to pick and choose what you and I get to know about how the chief law enforcement agency in the state is operated. Horne’s solicitor general, Dave Cole, said in an e-mail that a committee of lawyers in the Attorney General’s Office decided not to disclose the information and that Horne wasn’t involved in the decision.

“Speculative, mean spirited nasty gossip that can be false and that can be the subject of lawsuits for defamation does not serve the public interest,” Cole said.

Translation, Horne’s people weren’t protecting Horne. Or his assistant attorney general/rumored girlfriend. Or his campaign pal who now does…whatever it is she does over there at the Attorney General’s Office.

No, they were protecting us.

Really, they were.

As the state spins, you see, it also unravels.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne nailed for hit and run.

Source

Arizona AG cited in hit-run accident

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic - azcentral.com Wed Oct 24, 2012 5:52 PM

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne has received a misdemeanor citation alleging he caused paint damage to the bumper of a parked vehicle during a March 27 fender bender that he did not report.

The accident was witnessed by two FBI special agents who were tailing Horne as part of an investigation into alleged campaign-finance violations. The FBI turned the information over to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. Earlier this month, county officials referred the matter to the city of Phoenix.

The state’s top prosecutor issued a brief, written statement about the citation shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Phoenix Police Department Sgt. Trent Crump said detectives from the Vehicular Crimes Unit cited Horne Wednesday morning.

The citation was for one count of leaving the scene of a collision/unattended vehicle, a class three misdemeanor and the lowest-level misdemeanor offense. Crump said the ticket includes a court date and refers Horne to Phoenix Municipal Court.

“I first learned of my possible involvement in this incident several months ago, and requested from investigating authorities the name of the owner of the vehicle so I could immediately pay for any damage I may have caused,” the statement read. “For some unknown reason I received no response. Hopefully, I can now obtain this information or the owner will contact me so I can pay for any damage that I may have unknowingly caused.”

Phoenix police and city prosecutors have not released public records about the accident to The Republic.

Other public records obtained by the newspaper from the county attorney’s office detail the crash. Maricopa County Attorney's Detective Mark Stribling wrote an April 19 memo describing how FBI agents Brian Grehoski and Merv Mason watched the accident and the minutes leading up to it. Stribling wrote that agents saw Carmen Chenal, a longtime Horne confidante and employee, leave the Attorney General's Office during lunch hour, get into a vehicle and drive to a downtown Phoenix parking garage. Horne then left the office and drove his gold Jaguar into the same garage.

Horne and Chenal then left the garage, with Horne driving the vehicle originally driven by Chenal, Stribling wrote. Chenal was in the passenger seat.

“Horne was now wearing a baseball hat and he drove to Carmen's residence where Horne backed into a white Range Rover,” Stribling wrote. “Horne and Chenal then drove away, parked in a parking garage and both walked into residential area where Chenal lived.”

Horne hit-and-run caused more than $1,000 in damage, records

Source

Horne hit-and-run caused more than $1,000 in damage, records

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Oct 30, 2012 12:22 PM

New Phoenix Police Department records show that the hit-and-run fender bender that Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and one of his employees were involved in last spring caused more than $1,000 in damages to the other vehicle.

The documents were released Tuesday to The Arizona Republic and 12 News in response to public-records requests.

The owner of the 2008 Range Rover that was struck, Kevin Montaño of Goodyear, said it is unclear how the damages will be repaired because the insurer of the vehicle driven by Horne needs to further investigate the accident.

“He’s a man,” Montaño said. “It happens. I wasn't in the vehicle, I wasn't aware of the impact he felt when it hit. He says he didn't even feel anything. You've got to take him at his word, you know?”

Montaño said he has never spoken with the attorney general.

Horne last week received a misdemeanor citation alleging he caused paint damage to the bumper of a parked vehicle during a March 27 fender bender that he did not report. The citation was for one count of leaving the scene of a collision/unattended vehicle, a class three misdemeanor. Police have said the ticket includes a Nov. 2 court date and refers Horne to Phoenix Municipal Court.

The accident was witnessed by two FBI special agents who were tailing Horne as part of an investigation into alleged campaign-finance violations. The FBI turned the information over to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. Earlier this month, county officials referred the matter to the city of Phoenix.

Other public records obtained by the newspaper from the county attorney’s office detail the crash. Maricopa County Attorney's Detective Mark Stribling wrote an April 19 memo describing how FBI agents Brian Grehoski and Merv Mason watched the accident and the minutes leading up to it. Stribling wrote that agents saw Carmen Chenal, a longtime Horne confidante and employee, leave the Attorney General's Office during lunch hour, get into a borrowed car, and drive to a downtown Phoenix parking garage. Horne then left the office and drove his gold Jaguar into the same garage.

Horne and Chenal then left the garage, with Horne driving the vehicle originally driven by Chenal, Stribling wrote. Chenal was in the passenger seat. Horne was wearing a baseball cap as they drove to Carmen’s residence.

After the accident, the Phoenix report states, Horne “stopped for an estimated 10 to 20 seconds. Neither Tom nor Carmen got out or opened the windows to look out to see the damage. Tom pulled away and parked the vehicle in another area of the parking garage and the two of them walked through the resident gate and went into Carmen’s apartment.”

The new records show images of the damage to the Range Rover, which include dark paint streaks on the bumper. A repair estimate by Penske Automotive Collison in Scottsdale indicates the costs to repair it would be $1,070.95, including parts, paint and labor.

Horne declined to speak to Phoenix police who investigated the case. His spokeswoman, Amy Rezzonico, and employee Linnea Heap, whose Volkswagon car Horne was driving during the accident, also declined to speak to the police.

In an April 20 interview with the FBI, Heap first tells agents that Chenal “told me that someone had hit the bumper,” according to transcripts. Heap stated Chenal saw minor damage when she “came to the car.” The agents chided Heap for protecting Chenal, her friend, and pointed out that Martha Stewart went to prison for lying to the FBI, not securities fraud.

Heap later changed her story, saying Chenal told her that Horne hit the Range Rover while backing up in the parking garage. Chenal told Phoenix police that she looked out of the window to see if there was any damage to the Rover, and that there was none. She said the damage to Heap’s car was no more than $150.

Horne’s versions of his response to the accident have varied, and they conflict with authorities’ records. He has told The Republic he could not remember who he was with when the accident occured, but on the same day told other media outlets he was with Chenal. He told one TV station he didn’t see ay damage to the Range Rover. And he told another TV station he hardly remembered the accident.

But records show neither Horne nor Chenal “made any attempt to check for damage or make any kind of notification to the vehicle owner,” such as leaving a note. Records also show Rezzonico told the FBI Horne paled when he recounted the accident days later to her.

A nice hot piece of pita

Laughter, not outrage, will do in Tom Horne

A rather sizable nail was driven into the political coffin of Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne on Tuesday -- not with a hammer but with humor.

Can anyone take this guy seriously after reading the account of his hit-and-run accident en route to his apparent secret assignation with one of his employees?

First, we are told, Horne and his alleged girlfriend, Assistant Attorney General Carmen Chenal, leave the office in separate cars: him in his gold Jag, her in a borrowed Volkswagon Passat.

They meet up in the parking garage at 10th Avenue and Washington, wherein he leaves his car and gets into the Volkswagon's driver seat. He then pulls on a ball cap and the pair of them promptly head to Chenal's apartment complex, at Second Avenue and Roosevelt.

All this as FBI agents who are tailing him watch.

The FBI agents report that once the couple reached Chenal's apartment, Horne backed into a Range Rover, then sat there for 10 or 20 seconds before driving away, leaving $1,000 worth of damage in his wake. They then parked the car in another spot and walked into the complex. Later, we are told, the couple buffed the scratches out of the Volkswagon, presumably before returning it to Chenal's friend.

Horne hasn't been available to talk about his lunchtime rendezvous. His press aide has hinted that Horne's a fan of the Pita Jungle, which just happens to be near Chenal's apartment complex. And on Tuesday, Horne, in a written statement, repeated the Pita Jungle defense.

Yeah, that's it, all that secrecy -- the change of cars, the baseball cap -- all that igcognito stuff was simply so that the attorney general of the state of Arizona could score ....

...A nice hot piece of pita.

Attorney General Tom Horne's Unacceptable Behavior

Source

Unacceptable behavior

Nov. 1, 2012 12:00 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Whether they think it fair or not, elected officials are expected to maintain a higher standard of behavior than the people who put them into office.

They have to follow the law, like the rest of us. But in exchange for public support, they also must meet a higher threshold of civil decency than the guy on the street.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne is failing that latter test miserably. He very well may be failing the test as a law-abider, as well.

But Horne is not just any public official. He is the state's attorney general, its top cop. And that renders Horne's tumble into tawdriness all that much more egregious.

It is not the state Minister of Obscure Bureaucracy who is (at best) pushing the limits of campaign-finance law or foisting dozens of marginally qualified political appointees into an Attorney General's Office racked with budget cutbacks.

It is not some small-potatoes official turning his office into a soap opera where partisan devotees openly fight for his favors. (A "harem" of "Horne-ites"?)

Or one who, allegedly, conducted a witch hunt for supporters of his election opponent. Or turned with a vengeance on the whistle-blower who reported his legally dubious campaign shenanigans to the FBI.

On top of all else, it is not some Smallville potentate who appears to have been caught in a lunch-hour tryst with an employee, capped off with a fender-bending hit-and-run while wearing a baseball cap pulled down low to avoid detection, like a low-budget version of John Edwards hiding out from the National Enquirer.

The essential point that Horne seems to be missing in all these escapades is the unavoidable unseemliness of it all. Horne is the Arizona attorney general. At least for now.

This is a position of stature, held in recent years by some of Arizona's most prominent political figures.

Bob Corbin served as attorney general. Grant Woods served as attorney general. We elected Janet Napolitano and Terry Goddard to attorney general. And regardless what one thinks of their politics, they conducted themselves with dignity and respect for the office.

Tom Horne is debasing it.

The particulars of the case against Horne seem to waiver between distasteful and possibly illegal. In the course of attempting what appears to be a cover-up fending off an investigation of his campaign-finance coordination with Kathleen Winn, Horne is accused of trying to script the responses of potential witnesses. Isn't it the duty of a prosecutor to let the cards fall where they may? Not for Tom Horne, apparently.

From the start, Horne's reaction to each of the controversies has been to deflect and deny. To contend, straight-faced, that his almost constant cellphone contact with Winn regarded a complicated real-estate transaction, not the workings of the independent expenditure campaign effort she led on his behalf. Or that he parked in his [Carmen Chenal] alleged lover's parking garage because it was close to his favorite restaurant. Or that he didn't remember who was in the car.

It is time for Horne to stop insulting the public's intelligence.

At the least, Arizona voters deserve a relatively honest explanation from Horne for his behavior.

It would help for him to acknowledge that elected officials should honor minimum standards of behavior and to apologize for having fallen far, far short.

Some attorney general

Some attorney general

Nov. 1, 2012 12:00 AM

Let's see if I've got this straight:

Tom Horne, Arizona's top law-enforcement official, is accused of committing a hit-and-run allegedly so he wouldn't get caught committing adultery, and the only reason he was caught was because he was being followed by the FBI, which was investigating him over suspected campaign-finance violations.

Arizona, you sure know how to pick your law enforcers, don't you?

Bob Uselton
Phoenix

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne pleads not guilty to hit-and-run

Source

Tom Horne pleads not guilty to hit-and-run

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Nov 2, 2012 12:35 PM

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne has pleaded not guilty in connection with the hit-and-run of a parked vehicle that FBI agents witnessed last spring.

Horne’s attorney entered the plea late Thursday in Phoenix Municipal Court so the arraignment was canceled and a pretrial conference was scheduled for Nov 21.

Horne, the state’s top prosecutor, is charged with a Class 3 misdemeanor for leaving the scene of an accident with an unattended vehicle. The Class 3 misdemeanor carries a maximum of 30 days in jail and a $500 fine.

The March 27 incident was witnessed by two FBI special agents who were tailing Horne as part of an investigation into alleged campaign-finance violations.

Horne in a statement has said the accident “may have caused no damage to that vehicle. At worst, pictures show nothing but some scratched paint."

Phoenix Police Department records show that the fender bender caused more than $1,000 in paint damage to the bumper of the other vehicle.

Public records obtained by The Arizona Republic from the County Attorney’s Office detail the crash. County attorney’s Detective Mark Stribling wrote an April 19 memo describing how FBI Agents Brian Grehoski and Merv Mason watched the accident and the minutes leading up to it.

Stribling wrote that agents saw Carmen Chenal, a longtime Horne confidante and employee, leave the Attorney General’s Office during lunch hour, get into a borrowed Volkswagen car and drive to a downtown Phoenix parking garage. Horne then left the office and drove his gold Jaguar into the same garage. Horne and Chenal then left the garage, with Horne driving the vehicle originally driven by Chenal, Stribling wrote. Chenal was in the passenger seat. Horne was wearing a baseball cap as they drove to Chenal’s residence.

After the accident, the Phoenix report states, Horne “stopped for an estimated 10 to 20 seconds.”

“Neither Tom nor Carmen got out or opened the windows to look out to see the damage,” the report adds. “Tom pulled away and parked the vehicle in another area of the parking garage, and the two of them walked through the resident gate and went into Carmen’s apartment.”

Authorities concluded that Horne, a married man, did not leave a note so he could hide a relationship with Chenal.

An FBI report released by Phoenix police Tuesday states, “It should be noted that through the course of the investigation, SA (Special Agent) Grehoski and SA Mason learned that Horne is having an extramarital affair with Chenal and that they utilize Chenal’s apartment in furtherance of that affair. Though motive is not an element of the criminal statute listed above, it stands to reason that Horne did not want any record of his presence in the parking garage of Chenal’s apartment complex, thus he did not leave a note.”

Horne’s versions of his response to the accident have varied, and they conflict with authorities’ records. He has told The Republic he could not remember whom he was with when the accident occurred, but on the same day told other media outlets he was with Chenal. He told one TV station he didn’t see any damage to the Range Rover. And he told another TV station that he hardly remembered the accident.

But records show that neither Horne nor Chenal “made any attempt to check for damage or make any kind of notification to the vehicle owner,” such as leaving a note.

Adiós Arpaio

It's time to boot Sheriff Joe Arpaio out of office. Sheriff Joe is not only the worst Sheriff in Maricopa County, Sheriff Joe is the worst sheriff in the world!

Horne an embarrassment (hopefully) to himself

Horne an embarrassment (hopefully) to himself

By EJ MONTINI

Sat, Nov 03 2012 6:29 PM

“What is wrong with you?” asked the guy on the phone. “You used to go for the throat. I can’t BELIEVE you haven’t carved up (Attorney General) Tom Horne about that whole thing with the car and the woman and leaving the accident. Seriously, what’s up?”

I told him the truth: I feel bad for Horne’s wife.

I don’t know her, but I’ve heard from someone who does that she is a very nice woman. I’d imagine these are difficult days for her and I don’t have the literary skills to make fun of her all-too-deserving husband without making things worse for her.

“Hey, a woman knows what she’s getting into when she marries a politician,” the caller said.

That’s true.

Spouses of politicians become accustomed to hearing and reading unpleasant things about their partners. Just as the children and extended families of other public figures get used to hearing criticism about a loved one’s job performance, whether their careers are in sports, entertainment or even the media. (Just ask my kids.)

Horne is no exception.

He's gotten bad press over allegations he was involved in an independent expenditure committee that attacked his Democratic opponent, Felicia Rotellini, during the 2010 race for AG.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, a fellow Republican, concluded that Horne was close with Business Leaders for Arizona, a committee that raised and spent more than $500,000 to attack Rotellini with TV ads.

"There were contemporaneous e-mails and telephone conversations on how much money was expected from this particular source of funds, and what ... needed to be the message, concerns over the content of the commercial in production, and active communications about why maybe some of the messaging needed to be changed," Montgomery said.

And that’s not the only problem Horne has had.

He brought with him to the AG’s office a host of cronies from the state education department, where he was the elected superintendent.

He allegedly went after a whistle blower in the AGs when whistle blowers are among the most valuable people we have for routing out injustice.

He stood by and watched silently when the state legislature “swept” $50 million from the $97 million Arizona received as part of a nationwide lawsuit settlement, money that was meant to help struggling Arizona homeowners.

At the very least the state’s top cop should stand up for vulnerable citizens. He didn’t.

All of that is fair game.

This is different.

This time when Attorney General Horne made the news it had less to do with affairs of state than with the state of an affair. There was an incident tied to an alleged tryst with an employee that involved a minor hit-and-run that wasn’t reported.

While under surveillance by the FBI (There are legitimate question about why that was going on.) Horne and an employee named Carmen Chenal left the AG’s office at lunch time in separate cars. She borrowed a Volkswagen from a friend. He drove his Jaguar. They parked in a Phoenix garage near one another. Horne got out of his car, put on a baseball cap (a lame disguise) and then got into the VW. Horne was driving when agents said the VW hit a parked car and drove away without stopping to assess the damage, now estimated at over $1,000.

According to the FBI report released by Phoenix police: “It should be noted that through the course of the investigation, SA (Special Agent) Grehoski and SA Mason learned that Horne is having an extramarital affair with Chenal and that they utilize Chenal’s apartment in furtherance of that affair. Though motive is not an element of the criminal statute listed above, it stands to reason that Horne did not want any record of his presence in the parking garage of Chenal’s apartment complex, thus he did not leave a note.”

A paragraph with as much sordid information as that is a gold mine for a sarcastic hack like me.

So why not exploit it? Shouldn’t Horne be embarrassed?

Yes.

But no one else should.

Unless, maybe, you voted for him.

E-mail: Horne allies weighed tracking rival donors

Source

E-mail: Horne allies weighed tracking rival donors

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Nov 14, 2012 9:43 PM

Shortly after Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne was elected to office, campaign volunteers who later became his employees discussed tracking state employees who contributed to his Democratic opponent, new records say.

On Nov. 22, 2010, Charles “Chuck” Johnson, now an assistant attorney general, e-mailed Horne confidante Carmen Chenal and three other women about creating a spreadsheet of employees who donated to Felecia Rotellini’s campaign.

The document was contained in a new batch of investigative records the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office released Wednesday to The Arizona Republic.

The records stem from the agency’s joint investigation with the FBI into allegations that Horne illegally coordinated with an independent expenditure committee run by his political ally and current employee Kathleen Winn during the 2010 election.

Each has denied wrongdoing.

Separately, Horne has disputed statements his former human-resources adviser Susan Schmaltz made to the FBI that Horne was preoccupied with the political loyalties of his employees.

Schmaltz told investigators that Horne kept lists of employees’ political affiliations and campaign contributions to Rotellini and that he directed staff to hire some supporters.

But Johnson’s e-mail suggests some of those closest to Horne were intent on tracking employees’ political affiliations. Horne was not copied on the e-mail.

The e-mail reads:

“Can you do a spread sheet of each State employee who contributed to Felecia’s campaign? I can do it manually (either cut & paste or original typing), but just wondered if you could do it electronically, faster, more detailed, & more reliable. By date, amount (in kind or dollars), name & position would be helpful.

“This is very confidential stuff. We don’t want anyone to get the misimpression that such contributions will get a person fired, but it is just one management tool to be utilized in determining who may have divided loyalties in light of Felecia’s announcement that she’ll be running against Tom in 2014 & actively campaigning for something/someone in 2012.”

It is unclear whether the spreadsheet was ever created and, if it was, by whom. In a statement, Horne said he never “possessed any list of employee party affiliation.” He stated that employees did not face retaliation because of their contributions to Rotellini and that “many” employees who supported her have been promoted, adding that names of campaign contributors are public record.

Johnson worked for former Attorney General Terry Goddard but was fired for reasons not disclosed to the public. Johnson helped Horne in his effort to become attorney general, and Horne hired him. Copied on the e-mail were Chenal; Linnea Heap, the attorney-general employee whose car Horne was driving during a March 27 fender bender; Special Agent Lauren Buhrow; and project specialist Mila Makal.

The other records released Wednesday largely focused on personal e-mails to and from campaign workers regarding the 2010 election, as well as opposition research against Rotellini.

That research could again come into play.

Both Rotellini and Horne last week told The Republic that they are considering running for attorney general in 2014.

But they may have competition from Goddard, who confirmed to The Republic on Wednesday that he, too, is considering a potential return to the state prosecutor’s office.

Tom Horne legal proceedings to begin Jan. 22

Source

Tom Horne legal proceedings to begin Jan. 22

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:51 PM

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and his employee, Kathleen Winn, are scheduled to defend themselves against allegations of campaign-finance violations starting Jan. 22.

According to a notice from the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings, proceedings before Judge Tammy Eigenheer are expected to conclude by Jan. 29. The proceedings are Horne and Winn’s opportunity to present their sides of the case.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery has accused Winn and Horne, the state’s top law-enforcement official, of deliberately breaking campaign-finance laws during Horne’s 2010 bid for office by coordinating with an independent expenditure committee Winn oversaw. Montgomery’s conclusion came after a 14-month investigation by county investigators and the FBI.

Montgomery has said investigators found e-mails and phone records showing Horne, a Republican, was involved with Business Leaders for Arizona, which raised and spent more than $500,000 to run TV ads blasting Horne's Democratic opponent, Felecia Rotellini, in the closing days of the tight race.

Coordination between candidates and independent expenditure committees is illegal.

Horne and Winn have denied all of the accusations against them and have said they will be vindicated through legal proceedings.

FBI investigation reveals bureau’s comprehensive access to electronic communications

The police that are spying on you probably read this email before you did!!!!

Remember if you are doing something illegal you certainly should not be talking about it in an email or posting it on the internet where federal, state, county, and local city cops watch our every move.

You can encrypt your emails with something like PGP, but I suspect if you piss the Feds off enough they are willing to spend big bucks to get the folks at the NSA to decrypt your messages.

And last but not least your telephone isn't that safe either. The police routinely illegally listen to our phone calls without the required "search warrants".

Remember any time you use a cell phone you are also using a radio transmitter and EVERYTHING you say is broadcast onto the airwaves for anybody to listen to.

Source

FBI investigation of Broadwell reveals bureau’s comprehensive access to electronic communications

By Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima, Published: November 17

The FBI started its case in June with a collection of five e-mails, a few hundred kilobytes of data at most.

By the time the probe exploded into public view earlier this month, the FBI was sitting on a mountain of data containing the private communications — and intimate secrets — of a CIA director and a U.S. war commander. What the bureau didn’t have — and apparently still doesn’t — is evidence of a crime.

How that happened and what it means for privacy and national security are questions that have induced shudders in Washington and a queasy new understanding of the FBI’s comprehensive access to the digital trails left by even top officials.

FBI and Justice Department officials have vigorously defended their handling of the case. “What we did was conduct the investigation the way we normally conduct a criminal investigation,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday. “We follow the facts.”

But in this case, the trail cut across a seemingly vast territory with no clear indication of the boundaries, if any, that the FBI imposed on itself. The thrust of the investigation changed direction repeatedly and expanded dramatically in scope.

A criminal inquiry into e-mail harassment morphed into a national security probe of whether CIA Director David H. Petraeus and the secrets he guarded were at risk. After uncovering an extramarital affair, investigators shifted to the question of whether Petraeus was guilty of a security breach.

When none of those paths bore results, investigators settled on the single target they are scrutinizing now: Paula Broadwell, the retired general’s biographer and mistress, and what she was doing with a cache of classified but apparently inconsequential files.

On Capitol Hill, the case has drawn references to the era of J. Edgar Hoover, the founding director of the FBI, who was notorious for digging up dirt on Washington’s elite long before the invention of e-mail and the Internet.

“The expansive data that is available electronically now means that when you’re looking for one thing, the chances of finding a whole host of other things is exponentially greater,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-­Calif.), a member of the House intelligence committee and a former federal prosecutor.

In this case, Schiff said, the probe may have caused more harm than it uncovered. “It’s very possible that the most significant damage done to national security was the loss of General Petraeus himself,” Schiff said.

Not the usual boundaries

The investigation’s profile has called attention to what legal and privacy experts say are the difficulties of applying constraints meant for gathering physical evidence to online detective work.

Law enforcement officers conducting a legal search have always been able to pursue evidence of other crimes sitting in “plain view.” Investigators with a warrant to search a house for drugs can seize evidence of another crime, such as bombmaking. But the warrant does not allow them to barge into the house next door.

But what are the comparable boundaries online? Does a warrant to search an e-mail account expose the communications of anyone who exchanged messages with the target? [Warrants, who needs stinking warrants. We will just do an illegal search and laugh when the illegal search causes you to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers to get it throw out. Remember the police are criminals who routinely break the law in an effort to put other criminals in jail. If cops didn't routinely commit perjury they wouldn't have a slang word for it which is testilying!!!]

Similarly, FBI agents monitoring wiretaps have always been obligated to put down their headphones when the conversation is clearly not about a criminal enterprise. [Do you really think an FBI agent is going to put down the headphones and miss out on all that potentially incriminating dirt???] It’s known as minimization, a process followed by intelligence and law enforcement agencies to protect the privacy of innocent people.

“It’s harder to do with e-mails, because unlike a phone, you can’t just turn it off once you figure out the conversation didn’t relate to what you’re investigating,” said Michael DuBose, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section who now handles cyber-investigations for Kroll Advisory Solutions.

Some federal prosecutors have sought to establish a “wall” whereby one set of agents conducts a first review of material, disclosing to the investigating agents only what is relevant. But Michael Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor who consults on electronic surveillance issues, said he thinks “that’s the exception rather than the rule.” [I suspect this is more about convincing juries that the FBI didn't do something illegal, and I doubt if it stops the cops from doing anything illegal.]

It’s unclear whether the FBI made any attempt to minimize its intrusion into the e-mails exchanged by Broadwell and Petraeus, both of whom are married, that provided a gaping view into their adulterous relationship.

Many details surrounding the case remain unclear. The FBI declined to respond to a list of questions submitted by The Washington Post on its handling of personal information in the course of the Petraeus investigation. The bureau also declined to discuss even the broad guidelines for safeguarding the privacy of ordinary citizens whose e-mails might surface in similarly inadvertent fashion.

The scope of the issue is considerable, because the exploding use of e-mail has created a new and potent investigative resource for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement demands for e-mail and other electronic communications from providers such as Google, Comcast and Yahoo are so routine that the companies employ teams of analysts to sort through thousands of requests a month. Very few are turned down. [Remember what I said about NEVER using email to talk about anything you do that illegal. The article just said the FBI routinely gets Google and Yahoo to help them spy on you!!!!]

Wide access to accounts

Although the Petraeus-Broadwell investigation ensnared high-ranking officials and had potential national security implications, the way the FBI assembled evidence in the case was not extraordinary, according to several experts.

The probe was triggered when a Florida socialite with ties to Petraeus and Gen. John R. Allen, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, went to the FBI in June with menacing e-mails from an anonymous sender. [Even if you use an anonymous email the cops will almost certainly get the IP address that the email was sent from which probably will point to you!!!!]

Schiff and others have questioned why the FBI even initiated the case. Law enforcement officials have explained that they were concerned because the earliest e-mails indicated that the sender had access to details of the personal schedules of Petraeus and Allen.

The FBI’s first pile of data came from Jill Kelley, who got to know Petraeus and Allen when she worked as an unofficial social liaison at the military base in Tampa where both men were assigned.

In early summer, Kelley received several anonymous e-mails warning her to stay away from Allen and Petraeus. Kelley was alarmed and turned over her computer to the FBI; she may also have allowed access to her e-mail accounts.

The e-mails were eventually traced to Broadwell, who thought that Kelley was a threat to her relationship with Petraeus, law enforcement officials said. But the trail to Broadwell was convoluted.

Broadwell reportedly tried to cover her tracks by using as many as four anonymous e-mail accounts and sending the messages from computers in business centers at hotels where she was staying while on a nationwide tour promoting her biography of Petraeus. According to some accounts, the FBI traced the e-mails to those hotels, then examined registries for names of guests who were checked in at the time. [See they can hunt down anonymous emails based on the IP address that sent them]

The recent sex scandal that's rocked the armed forces and the CIA has highlighted an often-unseen problem in military families: Marital infidelity. Anthony Mason and Rebecca Jarvis speak with two Army wives to understand if infidelity is the military's dirty little secret.

Once Broadwell was identified, FBI agents would have gone to Internet service providers with warrants for access to her accounts. Experts said companies typically comply by sending discs that contain a sender’s entire collection of accounts, enabling the FBI to search the inbox, draft messages and even deleted correspondence not yet fully erased.

“You’re asking them for e-mails relevant to the investigation, but as a practical matter, they let you look at everything,” said a former federal prosecutor who, like many interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition on anonymity because the FBI inquiry is continuing.

FBI agents can then roam through every corner of the account as if it were their own. [Which is why you should NEVER post illegal stuff on the internet!!!!!!]

The capability to scour e-mail accounts has expanded the bureau’s investigative power dramatically, even in crimes previously seen as difficult to prosecute. For example, officials said, the ability to reconstruct communications between reporters and their sources helps explain why the Obama administration has been able to bring more leak prosecutions than all of its predecessors combined.

E-mail searches vary in scope and technique, from scanning contents for key words “to literally going through and opening every file and looking at what it says,” a former Justice Department official said.

Law enforcement officials said the FBI never sought access to Allen’s computer or accounts. It’s unclear whether it did so with Petraeus. But through Kelley and Broadwell, the bureau had amassed an enormous amount of data on the two men — including sexually explicit e-mails between Petraeus and Broadwell and questionable communications between Allen and Kelley.

Petraeus and Broadwell had tried to conceal their communications by typing drafts of messages, hitting “save” but not “send,” and then sharing passwords that provided access to the drafts. But experts said that ruse would have posed no obstacle for the FBI, because agents had full access to the e-mail accounts.

As they pore over data, FBI agents are not supposed to search for key words unrelated to the warrant under which the data were obtained. But if they are simply reading through document after document, they can pursue new leads that surface.

“Most times, if you found evidence of a second crime, you would stop and go back and get a second warrant” to avoid a courtroom fight over admissibility of evidence, a former prosecutor said. But in practical terms, there is no limit on the number of investigations that access to an e-mail account may spawn.

‘Because of who it was’

There is nothing illegal about the Petraeus-Broadwell affair under federal law. Were it not for Petraeus’s prominent position, the probe might have ended with no consequence. But because of his job — and the concern that intelligence officers caught in compromising positions could be susceptible to blackmail — the probe wasn’t shut down.

“If this had all started involving someone who was not the director of the CIA . . . they would have ignored it,” said David Sobel, senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group. “A bell went off because of who it was.”

That consideration triggered a cascade of additional quandaries for the Justice Department, including whether and when to notify Congress and the White House. The FBI finally did so on election night, Nov. 6, when Deputy Director Sean Joyce called Petraeus’s boss, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.

After being confronted by Clapper, Petraeus agreed to resign.

President Obama said last week that there was “no evidence at this point, from what I’ve seen, that classified information was disclosed that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security.”

But the data assembled on Allen and Petraeus continue to reverberate. The FBI turned over its stockpile of material on Allen — said to contain as many as 30,000 pages of e-mail transcripts — to the Defense Department, prompting the Pentagon inspector general to start an investigation.

The CIA has also launched an inspector general investigation into Petraeus and his 14-month tenure at the agency, seeking to determine, among other things, whether he used the perks of the position to enable his affair with Broadwell.

If it follows its own protocols, the FBI will hold on to the data for decades. Former officials said the bureau retains records for 20 years for closed criminal investigations, and 30 years for closed national security probes.

Sari Horwitz and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Data Doctors: Are my emails private from government agencies?

The answer is - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

Data Doctors: Are my emails private from government agencies?

Posted: Monday, November 19, 2012 8:00 am

By Ken Colburn, Data Doctors

Q: What is Metadata? And after the scandal of General Petraeus, are our emails private from government agencies? - Jeremy

A: E-mail has always been one of the least secure methods of transmitting data electronically and this recent scandal shows that even being tech-savvy isn’t much help.

When an e-mail message is created and sent, the message passes through a number of mail servers (think of them as post offices for snail mail) and a record of where the message came from and where it went (via IP addresses) is also created by virtually every device that handles the message.

Since most messages are sent in plain text, it’s technically possible for anyone or any system to read your message anywhere along the way (which is why e-mail encryption is important for sensitive messages). The reality is that most companies have very strict systems in place to keep just anyone from accessing those messages, but the opportunity still exists. [That is BS - Any person with computer administrative powers can read your emails. This is typically a "root" user in the UNIX or Linux worlds. But email administrators without "root" powers can also read your emails]

The information about the message, a.k.a. the ‘metadata’ is how the scandal was exposed. If we continue the snail mail analogy, the post office stamps mail to help route it and DNA or fingerprints on the outside of an envelope can be used to help track down the sender of the mail without ever opening the mail. [Again he is oversimplifying things. This so called 'metadata' is part of the email. It's at the very beginning of each email, and if you can read it, you can also read the email.]

Petraeus, the Director of the CIA, knew that sending and receiving e-mail from an anonymous account wouldn’t be safe, so he used a method commonly used by terrorists and teenagers: create draft messages, but never send them.

If two people have the username and password for the same account, they can create messages for each other that don’t leave the usual trails described above. They save them as draft copies so the other can log in and read the draft, then respond in-kind without ever sending a traceable message. [Well that is almost right. When the message is created, edited or read it does travel over the internet and someone that is monitoring your internet traffic could read it]

Had this been the only communication from the involved parties, they would likely never have been discovered but as usual, human error exposed the affair.

The jealous mistress sent harassing e-mails from an anonymous account to another woman she thought was being flirtatious, which is a criminal violation and began the unravelling of the affair.

The government can’t read your private messages without some level of due process, except in rare situations, but the process is what so many privacy advocates are concerned about. [That is in theory. In reality the FBI and Homeland security police are just as crooked as the criminals they hunt and they routinely illegally read people email, and after they discover a crime they will commit perjury and make up a lame excuse to get the search warrant they were supposed to have before they read your emails]

The current laws were created when electronic storage was expensive and we all tended to use one device and delete things to save space. Today, storage is cheap and we use a plethora of devices that in turn create more records that we tend to keep for much longer periods.

Under current laws, any e-mail that is 6 months old or older can be requested if a criminal prosecutor signs the request. If the message is less than 6 months old, a court order from a judge is required. [But that won't stop a crooked cop from illegally reading your data]

In either case, something that the courts recognize as probable cause has to trigger the request when it comes to the averages citizen. If someone suspected that Petraeus was having an affair, that wouldn’t have been enough to allow the FBI to start requesting access to his personal e-mail accounts.

His mistress’ harassing emails which violated part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is what opened to door and eventually lead to the exposure of the affair to the world.

The lessons to be learned from this scandal are that e-mail has never been or will never be a secure way to communicate with others, if you want to make it more difficult for the government to access your messages, make sure you delete them before they are 6 months old and no matter how secure you think you are, all it takes is one simple human error (or jealous mistress) to render your ‘security system’ useless. [While that might be "technically" right, it is wrong in reality. Just because YOU logically delete one of your emails doesn't mean it is physically deleted from the server that keeps your message. And even if you logically delete a message, but it still physically exists on a server the police can read it. The same is true with files on your personal computer. While you may logically delete a file, it frequently continues to exist on your computer and if it does exist the police can still read it.]

[The bottom line is if you have something that you want to remain private DON'T put it on the internet where 2 billion people might be able to read it.]

Sheriff Joe Arpaio wins by a lousy .7 percent

While Sheriff Joe is the most popular politician in Arizona, I suspect he is also one of the most hated people in Arizona.

Sadly we will have to put up with Sheriff Joe for another 4 years.

Source

Arpaio wins by .7 percent

By LAURIE ROBERTS

Wed, Nov 21 2012 11:08 AM

Final election results are – at along last – in for Maricopa County.

So, the sheriff, once the most popular politician in the state, eked out a win. Half the county’s voters (actually half plus .7 percent) supported the sheriff.

That means that half (actually half minus. 7 percent) didn’t support the sheriff.

And it took him $8 million to get the .7 percent.

That’s not a mandate, it’s a warning. The question is, did the sheriff, who has already announced his intent to run for re-election in 2016, get the message?

Arizona Organix First Authorized Medical Marijuana Dispensary in Arizona

Arizona Organix Steps Out as the State's First Authorized Medical-Marijuana Dispensary

By Ray Stern Thursday, Nov 22 2012

A business in Glendale has become Arizona's first licensed medical-marijuana dispensary under a voter-approved 2010 law.

It's called Arizona Organix — but it would have been more fitting had the owners dubbed the place Target and adopted the mega-chain's red concentric logo.

This is hostile territory — the land of Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, who claims that anyone selling marijuana can be prosecuted regardless of the state law, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who'll do anything for a headline.

Montgomery, who also strongly opposes abortion and pornography, is trying his best to become a hero to social conservatives. In August, he partnered with Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne to file a motion in Superior Court that seeks to reverse the will of voters — allowing dispensaries and marijuana cultivation — by having a judge declare that the state law is preempted by the federal prohibition against pot.

A ruling on the motion by Judge Michael Gordon is expected any day now. But Montgomery and Arpaio could use another test case.

So far, Arizona Organix owners Ben Myer, Bill Myer (Ben's father), and Ryan Wells have stuck out their heads only halfway.

Their store was authorized on November 15 to sell marijuana by the Arizona Department of Health Services, but it isn't open yet. A sign on the door at Arizona Organix (5301 West Glendale Avenue), which is in a high-profile location between a pet-food store and an antique shop, says, "We hope to be operating within a few weeks" and asks interested customers to sign up on an e-mail list.

The situation frustrates some in the medical-marijuana community, because the DHS said it would begin notifying newly qualified patients who are within a 25-mile radius of the store that they are forbidden from growing marijuana. Arizona law allows patients to grow up to 12 plants each, but not if an operating dispensary is open within a 25-mile zone.

However, on Monday afternoon, DHS director Will Humble announced that it had allowed the dispensary to delay the effective day of operation until the retail store opens, meaning the 25-mile exclusion won't be triggered just yet.

Other dispensaries could open before Arizona Organix. DHS inspectors were scheduled to visit a Tucson dispensary on November 20. But the legal battlefield remains hazy for any marijuana-related business in Arizona.

Wells tells New Times that he and the Myers still are trying to figure out when to open, even though they've been working on the dispensary project for two years.

"This has been such a long road for us; a lot of my feelings are pretty well dulled by this point. The next hurdle is to open and see what happens," Wells says.

They're wondering what Arpaio might do: "He's always in our minds for the worst."

But that's not the only hurdle. Arizona Organix hasn't yet found a cultivation site in which to grow the marijuana that will be sold to qualified patients.

The city of Glendale, which approved the dispensary earlier this year, doesn't allow medical-marijuana retail stores to grow pot on-site. The company's looking for a roomy warehouse to turn into an indoor greenhouse. Landlords, fearing reprisals from the feds, have been more than hesitant.

"Nine out of 10 say no," Wells says. He adds that obtaining a site still appears possible, as they're in negotiations with several property owners.

In theory, the medical-pot shop could open with donated marijuana on the shelves. Patients and caregivers can only possess up to 2.5 ounces at any given time under state law, but growing 12 plants generates more than 2.5 ounces. Arizona law allows patients and registered caregivers, who can cultivate for up to five patients each, to give their excess marijuana away to authorized dispensaries.

Wells says Arizona Organix possibly could find people who want to donate their marijuana, but he says it's not good business to open with a limited supply only to run out before replacement pot from a cultivation site is ready for sale. Being the only operating, official medical-pot store in the Valley would make it popular, for sure. And the location already has been operating as a compassion club, which distributed marijuana to dues-paying members, ostensibly without requiring anything of value in return.

Until last week, the Alternative Health Clinic used what is now Arizona Organix's address and phone number. "Very easy process to get high-quality medicine," says a February 14 comment on the clinic's Yelp.com listing.

Similar businesses have sprung up all over the state since the passage of the Medical Marijuana Act. They're a result, in part, of the vacuum created when Governor Jan Brewer canceled the dispensary portion of the law by executive order in May 2011. After two failures in court to block the law, the Republican governor was ordered by a state judge in January to carry out the wishes of voters. Ninety-seven applicants for dispensaries were selected at random by the state.

Meanwhile, Valley police agencies have raided several compassion clubs, claiming they were operating outside of the medical-marijuana law. New clubs have opened to replace some of those that closed. The raids typically are preceded by an undercover "buy" at the club by an officer with a medical-marijuana card. It's unknown whether Alternative Health Clinic was under investigation by any law enforcement agency when Arizona Organix took over at the location.

I tried to get the 2nd page of this article, but the folks at the New Times screwed up and put a garbage link to the 2nd page.

If you want to read the full article go to the URL and try again to find page two of the article.

State Bar investigates Attorney General Tom Horne

Source

State Bar investigates Attorney General Tom Horne

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Dec 3, 2012 6:08 PM

The State Bar of Arizona is investigating Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne over allegations stemming from a 14-month investigation into campaign finance violations.

The Bar, which licenses and regulates attorneys, is investigating the state’s top prosecutor over findings from both the election-related investigation as well as his role in a March hit-and-run along with his employee and assistant attorney general Carmen Chenal.

Citing court rules, Rick DeBruhl, Chief Communications Officer for the Bar, said he could not tell The Arizona Republic who initiated the charges, when the charges were initiated or what the potential sanctions could be. DeBruhl said Horne had been notified of the investigation.

The Bar’s legal regulation attorneys are attempting to determine whether Horne’s actions violated any ethical rules. If the attorneys conclude they did, the attorneys will request a probable cause order, which would allow them to proceed with a hearing to essentially present the evidence of their case.

Asked for comment on the investigation, Horne’s spokeswoman issued the following statement on Horne’s behalf: “Anytime someone makes a complaint to the State Bar, the State Bar investigates the complaint. Then, the State Bar decides whether or not to make a complaint. There has been no decision by the State Bar to make a complaint in this case.”

The immediate and long-term impact of the ethics investigation is unclear. Bar investigations into allegations of wrongdoing can begin and end with no sanctions, or in some instances, lead to disbarment.

Paul Bender, an Arizona State University law professor, said the state Constitution places age, citizenship and residency requirements on eligibility to hold state offices. State statute also states that “The attorney general shall have been for not less than five years immediately preceding the date of taking office a practicing attorney before the supreme court of the state.”

Bender said Horne, if disbarred, could argue state statues are unconstitutional because it places additional conditions on who can serve as attorney general.

Horne and employee Kathleen Winn are accused of illegally coordinating with an independent expenditure committee during the 2010 election.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery is pursuing a civil enforcement action against Horne and Winn, who chaired the committee and then went to work as Horne's director of community outreach. Horne and Winn have said they've done nothing wrong and that they will be vindicated during legal proceedings scheduled in January.

Horne is also charged with a Class 3 misdemeanor for leaving the scene of an accident with an unattended vehicle. The Class 3 misdemeanor carries a maximum of 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. He has pleaded not guilty.

His March 27 fender bender was witnessed by two FBI special agents who were tailing Horne as part of the campaign-finance violation investigation.

Horne in a previous statement has said the accident “may have caused no damage to that vehicle. At worst, pictures show nothing but some scratched paint."

Phoenix Police Department records show that the fender bender caused more than $1,000 in paint damage to the bumper of the other vehicle.

Tom Horne tells Arizona to chill

Tom Horne tells Arizona to chill

By LINDA VALDEZ

Tue, Dec 04 2012 7:55 AM

Someone should follow Tom Horne more often.

While Arizona’s embattled Attorney General was being followed in connection with one investigation, the FBI found him doing something that led to another investigation.

Gee, what else is this guy up to?

Now the State Bar of Arizona is looking into both issues: the alleged elections-related shenanigans and a hit-and-run accident.

Horne is becoming a master at dismissing questions about his suitability to office. He's so good at it that he reminds me of a teen-age boy.

Consider his statement that the hit-and-run “may have caused no damage to that vehicle.” No big deal, Mom! Phoenix Police put the damage to the other guy’s car at about $1,000.

Horne’s office issued a statement about the investigation by the lawyers’ professional association that sounded a lot like: No, I didn’t clean my room, but that doesn’t mean I will never clean my room. So just chill.”

Horne’s exact words: “Anytime someone makes a complaint to the State Bar, the State Bar investigates the complaint. Then, the State Bar decides whether or not to make a complaint. There has been no decision by the State Bar to make a complaint in this case.” So just chill.

But here’s the thing. Following Horne around has produced some interesting information about a guy who heads an office that’s supposed to be as squeaky clean as the Lone Ranger’s horse.

The more we find out about Tom Horne, the more obvious it becomes that he has no business in that office. He should resign.

State bar investigating AG Horne

State bar investigating AG Horne

Posted: Tuesday, December 4, 2012 8:46 am

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

The State Bar of Arizona is investigating Tom Horne, adding to the legal woes of the state's top lawyer.

Bar spokesman Rick DeBruhl confirmed for Capitol Media Services that his organization was looking into a complaint that the attorney general violated rules which govern the conduct of lawyers. If an investigatory committee finds violations, a disciplinary panel could impose sanctions, from a reprimand to being disbarred.

DeBruhl said there are two key areas of scrutiny.

One stems from an investigation of Horne by the FBI into allegations that he broke campaign finance laws in his 2010 election by illegally coordinating his efforts with that of what was supposed to be an independent committee.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery already has concluded there was a violation of the statutes which require separation of such efforts and wants a civil penalty against both campaigns. But both Horne and Kathleen Winn, who ran the independent campaign and works for Horne at the Attorney General's Office, have denied wrongdoing.

The case is set to go to a hearing next month.

DeBruhl also said the Bar is looking into allegations that Horne, driving someone else's car, left the scene after hitting another vehicle.

That incident was witnessed by two FBI investigators who were tailing Horne as part of that campaign finance inquiry. Phoenix police, saying the damage to the other vehicle totaled slightly more than $1,000, subsequently charged him with leaving the scene of an accident; he is tentatively set to be in city court later this month.

Horne has said he does not recall hitting another vehicle but conceded it might have happened.

In a prepared statement, Horne said the fact the Bar is looking at the issue means nothing.

"Any time someone makes a complaint to the State Bar, the State Bar investigates the complaint,'' he said, noting it does not become a formal "complaint'' against an attorney until the organization decides it has at least some merit. "There has been no decision by the State Bar to make a complaint in this case.''

Judge rules Arizona’s medical-marijuana law is constitutional

AG Tom Horne is the jerk who asked Governor Jan Brewer to declare Prop 203 null and void so he could continue throwing pot smokers in prison.

Source

Judge rules Arizona’s medical-marijuana law is constitutional

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Dec 5, 2012 12:43 AM

A court ruling that Arizona’s controversial medical-marijuana law does not conflict with federal drug laws cleared the way Tuesday for dispensaries to open and allows patients to legally obtain marijuana from the facilities.

The long-awaited decision by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Gordon rejected arguments made by Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery and Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne that the voter-approved law should be shut down because marijuana is illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act and that state employees would be facilitating federal crimes if they issued licenses to medical-marijuana dispensaries.

The first dispensary, Arizona Organix, is scheduled to open at 10a.m. Thursday in Glendale, with another to follow in Tucson later this month.

“This means that dispensaries are going to be able to open and start serving patients in Arizona,” said attorney Ryan Hurley, an expert in the state’s medical-marijuana law.

“And it means patients are finally going to have the access voters intended them to have to medicine that makes them feel better.”

Gordon, in his ruling, made clear that marijuana is still illegal under federal law, but he wrote that the U.S. Constitution allows Arizona to make different policy choices than the federal government when it comes to decriminalizing and regulating medical marijuana. He ruled that the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act does not undermine the purposes of the federal Controlled Substances Act, which makes possession, sale or use of marijuana a crime.

“Clearly, the mere State authorization of a very limited amount of federally proscribed conduct, under a tight regulatory scheme, provides no meaningful obstacle to federal enforcement,” Gordon wrote. “No one can argue that the federal government’s ability to enforce the CSA is impaired to the slightest degree.”

The judge also noted that 18 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation permitting the use of medical marijuana, adding: “This Court will not rule that Arizona, having sided with the ever-growing minority of States and having limited it to medical use, has violated public policy.”

Montgomery and Horne said in written statements said that they will appeal.

“As the trial court notes, the questions of law presented in this case and the analysis utilized by the trial court are not well settled or universally accepted,” Montgomery’s statement read. A spokesman for Montgomery stressed that the office’s position on the program has not changed.

Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., said Gordon’s ruling falls in line with other decisions.

“No court has ever said that it would be a crime for somebody to implement a state medical-marijuana law,” she said. “This is generally in keeping with other court decisions that found states could remove the criminal penalties for medical marijuana and set up some sort of regulatory system.”

O’Keefe said the federal government has not prosecuted anyone for implementing medical-marijuana programs.

“To suggest there was actually a real threat of this … is certainly foolish,” she said.

Voters in 2010 passed the measure to allow people with certain debilitating medical conditions, including chronic pain, cancer and muscle spasms, to use medical marijuana. They must obtain a recommendation from a physician and register with the state, which issues identification cards to qualified patients and caregivers. Caregivers can grow 12 plants for up to five patients. Users are limited to 2.5ounces every two weeks.

More than 33,000 people have permission to use medical marijuana in Arizona, and most can also grow their own until the dispensaries open.

Under the law, state health officials can license up to 126 dispensaries throughout designated areas. The law does not limit how much marijuana-dispensary operators can grow.

In August, the state Department of Health Services selected nearly 100 dispensary owners to have the opportunity to sell marijuana and operate cultivation sites to grow if they completed certain steps.

Gordon’s ruling stemmed from a legal argument over whether Maricopa County was required to approve zoning for White Mountain Health Center, which wanted to open a dispensary in an unincorporated area near Sun City.

Montgomery had advised county officials not to participate in the medical-marijuana program, saying employees could risk prosecution under federal drug laws.

Meanwhile, he and Horne used the case to test the federal pre-emption argument.

Butch Williams, an owner of White Mountain Health Center, said he hopes to soon fulfill the necessary requirements to become a full-fledged dispensary.

Gordon ruled that Maricopa County must provide the center with paperwork that it complies with zoning restrictions.

“The voters have a constitutional right to implement this in their state, and I’m glad the will of the voters is being listened to,” Williams said.

Attorney Ezekiel Edwards, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s criminal-law reform project, argued on White Mountain Health Center’s behalf during an Oct.19 hearing.

He disagreed with the notion that state law requires government workers to engage in activities that would expose them to liabilities under the Controlled Substances Act.

“The court understood the regulation of drugs and medicine is traditionally a power exercised by the states and that Arizona voters had chosen, as is their right, to decriminalize and regulate the medicinal use of marijuana,” Edwards told The Arizona Republic. “There’s nothing in federal law or in the Constitution that prevents Arizona from doing this.”

Source

Judge rules in favor of Arizona's medical marijuana dispensaries

Posted: Tuesday, December 4, 2012 2:54 pm

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

State and county officials cannot refuse to process applications for medical marijuana dispensaries just because the drug remains illegal under federal law, a trial judge ruled today.

In an extensive ruling, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Gordon rejected arguments by Attorney General Tom Horne and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery that the 2010 voter-approved Arizona Medical Marijuana Act is illegal and contrary to public policy because the possession and sale of marijuana remain a federal crime.

In his ruling, Gordon pointed out that 18 states and the District of Columbia already have enacted laws permitting some form of legal marijuana use. And the judge said he wasn't about to declare Arizona's own version invalid.

"This court will not rule that Arizona, having sided with the ever-growing minority of states and having limited it to medical use, has violated public policy,'' he wrote.

Gordon acknowledged that Congress enacted the Controlled Substances Act to combat drug abuse and to the control the legitimate and illegitimate traffic of drugs. That law classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug for which there is no legitimate medical use.

And the judge agreed that the 2010 initiative allowing the medical use of marijuana reflects "a very narrow but different policy choice'' about the drug. But he said the fact that Arizona has a different view of the drug does not illegally undermine the federal law: Federal agents remain free to arrest Arizonans who violate that federal statute.

"No one can argue that the federal government's ability to enforce the Controlled Substances Act is impaired to the slightest degree,'' Gordon wrote.

In fact, he said, what voters approved here actually could be interpreted to support the goals of Congress in combating drug abuse.

"The Arizona statute requires a physician to review a patient's medical circumstances prior to authorization of its use,'' he said.

Gordon also said the initiative also gives the state health department "full regulatory authority.'' That agency, in turn, has enacted rules to ensure that those dispensaries which operate within the law.

"The detailed regulations ensure the marijuana is used for medical purposes only,'' the judge wrote, saying the sale and use of the drug by those not authorized remains a state crime.

Most immediately, the decision should pave the way for a dispensary to open in Sun City. But the broad scope of the ruling, unless overturned, provides firm legal grounds for the state going ahead with its plans to license more than 100 such dispensaries around the state.

The 2010 initiative said individuals who have certain medical conditions can seek a recommendation from a doctor to use medical marijuana. The health department reviews those recommendations and, if appropriate, issues an identification card allowing the person to obtain up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks.

The most recent figures show more than 33,600 applications have been approved.

That law also envisions a network of up to 125 state-licensed dispensaries to grow and sell the drug to cardholders and their caregivers. But state health officials, acting on directions from Gov. Jan Brewer, initially dragged their feet on the whole licensing process until two separate courts rejected their arguments that the law is illegal.

In the interim, cardholders have been able to grow their own drugs.

The state has since licensed a handful of dispensaries. But the owners of White Mountain Health Center ran into a problem: The health department requires that anyone seeking a dispensary permit must provide documentation to the health department that the site is properly zoned.

In this case, Maricopa County officials, acting under Montgomery's advice, refused to provide the necessary letter. The county is involved because Sun City is an unincorporated area.

Dispensary owners sued, asking Gordon to order the county to issue the letter.

Montgomery told the judge he can't do that because it would put the county in the position of helping establish a place for the sale of items that are illegal under federal law. The Attorney General's Office took a similar legal position at an October hearing, with both arguing that public employees are committing a federal crime of aiding and abetting the possession and sale of marijuana in violation of federal law.

Gordon, however, pointed out a conviction under federal law for aiding requires proof the person assists or participates in committing the crime. He said that's not the case with public workers.

"Their specific intent is to perform their administrative tasks,'' the judge wrote.

"They have no interest in whether the dispensary opens, operates, succeeds or fails,'' Gordon continued, saying the workers "wholly unconnected to and separate from'' the people who actually will be selling the drugs. "These employees cannot be held accountable for conduct that they anticipate will occur but could care less if it actually does.'

Chicken Littles lose again (aka Tom Horne)

Chicken Littles lose again

By EJ MONTINI

Tue, Dec 04 2012 2:54 PM

Arizona’s anti-medical marijuana Chicken Littles – Attorney General Tom Horne and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery – were told by yet another judge that, no, the sky is NOT falling.

Maricopa County Superior Judge Michael Gordon did not buy the argument by Horne and Montgomery that county employees could face federal prosecution for aiding and abetting drug crimes if medical marijuana dispensaries are permitted to open. (See an article here.)

(Federal prosecutors have said time and again that they aren’t interested in arresting bureaucrats following state law.)

Of course, this latest ruling will only serve as proof to Horne and Montgomery (who hate the medical marijuana law) that the sky IS falling.

Already the Chicken Littles (who also include Gov. Jan Brewer) have been brushed aside in federal court.

That hasn’t stopped them from trying to prevent a smooth, logical implementation of a medical marijuana law that Arizona voters have repeatedly approved.

A while back I asked Ryan Hurley, who represents some of those hoping to open dispensaries, about the actions taken by Brewer, Horne and Montgomery.

"It was a little surprising," he told me. "Their stated intention from day one was to try to resolve this in a civil fashion in the courts, and that seems to have gone the other way. It's unfortunate because what they're going to end up doing is forcing cancer patients into the black market, into back alleys to pick up their medicine."

Montgomery said Tuesday that he would appeal the latest judge's decision.

The last time Montgomery dragged out the case, Hurley told me, "If he (Montgomery) is successful in delaying or impeding the dispensary program, all he is going to be doing is allowing this unregulated gray market to pop up. And patients aren't protected and growers aren't protected. The dispensaries offer a safe, legal, compliant way for people to get their medicine, and that is what people voted for."

What has been bizarre from the start is the way states’ rights advocates like Brewer would suddenly kowtow to what they say is the supremacy of federal law.

Bizarre, but not surprising.

The argument over medical marijuana, like the argument over immigration, isn’t based on states’ rights but on ideology.

States’ rights is just a cover.

Something a patron at a marijuana dispensary might describe as blowing smoke.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne Sex Scandal

The article Assistant Attorney General Carmen Chenal who allegedly is Tom Horne's mistress.

The article also mentions the hit and run accident that Tom Horne was allegedly involved in on his way to have an affair with Carmen Chenal.

At the same time all this has been happening Tom Horne has been doing everything he possibly can to get Arizona's new medical marijuana law thrown out so he can resume throwing medical marijuana patients in prison.

Bid to halt medical-pot ruling due in court

If you remember Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne was in an alleged hit and run accident while having an alleged affair with assistant attorney general and alleged mistress Carmen Chenal. If you ask me Tom Horne is just trying to create a smoke screen to cover up his own crimes.

Source

Bid to halt medical-pot ruling due in court

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The RepublicIazcentral.com Wed Dec 12, 2012 11:46 PM

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Gordon will hear arguments at 11 a.m. today on a request to stay or suspend his recent ruling on the legality of the state’s medical-marijuana law.

Last week, Gordon ruled Arizona’s controversial medical-marijuana law does not conflict with federal drug laws and rejected arguments made by Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery and Attorney General Tom Horne that state employees would be facilitating federal crimes if they issued licenses to medical-marijuana dispensaries.

Gordon also required the county to issue documents allowing White Mountain Health Center of Sun City to move forward with its effort to open a dispensary.

Montgomery and Horne have filed a motion to suspend Gordon’s ruling until their appeal has run its course. In their request, the prosecutors asked the court to “preserve the status quo” pending an appeal, saying, “This case concerns the question of pre-emption by federal law of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, a significant issue of first impression in the Arizona courts. Given that there is no appellate court guidance in Arizona on this important issue, it would be prudent to preserve the status quo and not compel county defendants to take any action that may later prove to be unsupported by Arizona law.”

Local attorneys Jeffrey Kaufman and Ezekiel Edwards, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s criminal-law reform project, represent White Mountain Health Center. The lawyers said that neither the stay request nor the appeal has merit and that the judge has already considered Montgomery’s argument that county officials would be harmed if they issued zoning documents.

“The argument has been raised and rejected,” Edwards said. “It seems the county is simply trying to sabotage implementing the voter-approved and voter-enacted Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, and we are encouraging the court to reject the county’s motion to stay.”

Alvarez to '60 Minutes': False confessions story was 'offensive'

"The 9 Step Reid Method" is the technique that most police agencies in the world use to get confessions.

Go ahead right now and Google

9 Step Reid Method

• Reid technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• The Reid Technique of Interrogation
• What are the nine steps of the Reid interrogation technique ...
• Reid 9 Steps of Interrogation - YouTube
• Modern Police Interrogation Techniques Use Subtle Psychological ...
• [PDF] Arguments Against Use of the Reid Technique for Juvenile ...
• Method to the Madness – Officer Reid's Torture Technique | The ...
• John Reid and the Reid Technique of Interviewing & Interrogation ...
• W-R-R The Reid Method
• Essentials of the Reid Technique: Criminal Interrogations and ...

Back in the old days cops used to get confessions by beating people with rubber hoses. The great thing about rubber hoses is they don't leave marks like beating a person with a club would and the cops can say the person confessed willingly without being beaten.

The "9 Step Reid Method" is just a modern method of beating the sh*t out of suspected criminals with psychological rubber hose. It's a very effective method in getting people to confess. In fact it's so effective that it routinely gets innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit.

And the good thing about "The 9 Step Reid Method" is that the psychological rubber hoses used to beat a suspected criminal into confession leave even less marks then real rubber hoses.

The bad thing about "The 9 Step Reid Method" is that the confessions cops get when they use it are about as reliable as those they got when they beat the sh*t out of a person with a rubber hose to get the confession.

As of today, DNA tests have cause 301 people who were framed by the police to be released from death row. Many of those people confess to the crimes the crimes the police framed them for. And of course most of those police confessions were obtained using the "The 9 Step Reid Method".

Source

Alvarez to '60 Minutes': False confessions story was 'offensive'

By Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune reporter

8:05 a.m. CST, December 14, 2012

After days of scathing reviews of her "60 Minutes" interview on false confessions, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez fired off a letter to the venerable news program calling its Sunday report "one-sided and extremely misleading" and vowing to set the record straight.

The segment titled "Chicago: The False Confession Capital" featured two infamous Chicago-area cases in which teenage boys allegedly confessed to brutal murders but were later exonerated when DNA excluded them as the killers.

In her letter, addressed to CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager, Alvarez called the story "an offensive display" and accused reporter Byron Pitts of using only snippets of a 6-month-old interview to distort her record and make it appear she was still trying to prosecute the cases.

"Had I known that this story would completely distort my position and intentionally omit critical facts, I would never have agreed to your interview," Alvarez wrote.

One particularly damaging portion of the interview involved the Dixmoor Five case in which five men were convicted as teens of the 1991 rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl whose body was found on a path. DNA linked a serial rapist to the crime and undermined confessions from the teens. They were cleared in 2011 after spending years in prison.

Alvarez explained in the interview that one possible explanation for the DNA was necrophilia — that the rapist had sex with the girl after she'd already been killed.

That answer — which was roundly mocked in blogs and news critiques — was misconstrued, Alvarez said in the letter. She wrote that the necrophilia theory was used at trial years before she had any involvement in the case.

"I have never advanced that theory or argument, but simply responded, when asked by Mr. Pitts, that we can't say with certainty what had occurred," Alvarez wrote. "This story was not designed to inform, it was designed to undermine me and mislead the public."

Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Alvarez, said the reaction to the piece has been vitriolic. "She's gotten hate mail, things you couldn't even publish," Daly said.

CBS News representatives did not return phone calls seeking comment.

jmeisner@tribune.com

Tom Horne and Bill Montgomery should arrest real criminals, not pot smokers!!!!

Source

Letter: An open letter to Bill Montgomery and Tom Horne

Posted: Saturday, December 15, 2012 2:31 pm

Letter to the Editor

Dear Sirs, Please be advised that President Obama has said in an interview with Barbara Walters the following when it comes to legalized marijuana. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry... It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational uses in states that have determined that it’s legal.”

So Mr. Montgomery and Mr Horne, we all know you both have a disdain for medical marijuana and the current president. So why can’t you just let this go? Clearly, the president doesn’t see it as a priority, so why do you both continue to waste taxpayer dollars? Instead, take the tax revenue and fight real crimes. The voters and legislatures in 18-plus states and D.C. have made their choices and we, the voters, demand that you stop chasing ghosts and stop the charades. Let adults make their own choices. Click here to find out more!

Court after court in Arizona has sided against the state time and time again when it comes to Proposition 202. It’s time for the full law to go into effect. As a medical cannabis patient, and a U.S. Navy Gulf War-era veteran, stop harassing us!

Jason Llewellyn

CHANDLER

AG Tom Horne’s hit-and-run case delayed again

Horne’s hit-and-run case delayed again

Associated Press Mon Dec 17, 2012 7:16 AM

PHOENIX — A court proceeding on a misdemeanor hit-and-run charge against Arizona Attorney Tom Horne is being postponed again and his lawyer says he is trying to reach a settlement with prosecutors.

Horne’s attorney requested and obtained a second one-month delay in a pretrial conference that was scheduled Monday in Phoenix Municipal Court.

Michael Kimerer’s request says he needs more time to evaluate the evidence and interview “critical witnesses.” He also wrote in a Dec. 13 motion he is having ongoing settlement communications with city prosecutors he hopes lead to a resolution.

Horne is accused of not leaving a note after FBI agents saw him tap another vehicle while driving a borrowed car earlier this year.

Horne says he didn’t think the other vehicle was damaged. He has pleaded not guilty.

Washington Post articles on guns & gun control

I am too lazy to cut and past all the text so here are some links to the articles:

Tiny URLs:

• http://tinyurl.com/c5yqlek
• http://tinyurl.com/bpcjcb9
• http://tinyurl.com/cvqku75

• History of gun control is cautionary tale for those seeking regulations after Conn. shooting
• A bunch of gun & gun control articles
• Five myths about gun control

Corrupt lab techs guarantee you won't get a fair trial

Review of FBI forensics does not extend to federally trained state, local examiners

It's not about a fair trial, it's about making cops look like heroes!!!!

Source

Review of FBI forensics does not extend to federally trained state, local examiners

By Spencer S. Hsu, Published: December 22

Thousands of criminal cases at the state and local level may have relied on exaggerated testimony or false forensic evidence to convict defendants of murder, rape and other felonies.

The forensic experts in these cases were trained by the same elite FBI team whose members gave misleading court testimony about hair matches and later taught the local examiners to follow the same suspect practices, according to interviews and documents.

In July, the Justice Department announced a nationwide review of all cases handled by the FBI Laboratory’s hair and fibers unit before 2000 — at least 21,000 cases — to determine whether improper lab reports or testimony might have contributed to wrongful convictions.

But about three dozen FBI agents trained 600 to 1,000 state and local examiners to apply the same standards that have proved problematic.

None of the local cases is included in the federal review. As a result, legal experts say, although the federal inquiry is laudable, the number of flawed cases at the state and local levels could be even higher, and those are going uncorrected.

The FBI review was prompted by a series of articles in The Washington Post about errors at the bureau’s renowned crime lab involving microscopic hair comparisons. The articles highlighted the cases of two District men who each spent more than 20 years in prison based on false hair matches by FBI experts. Since The Post’s articles, the men have been declared innocent by D.C. Superior Court judges.

Two high-profile local-level cases illustrate how far the FBI training problems spread.

In 2004, former Montana crime lab director Arnold Melnikoff was fired and more than 700 cases questioned because of what reviewers called egregious scientific errors involving the accuracy of hair matches dating to the 1970s. His defense was that he was taught by the FBI and that many FBI-trained colleagues testified in similar ways, according to previously undisclosed court records.

In 2001, Oklahoma City police crime lab supervisor Joyce Gilchrist lost her job and more than 1,400 of her cases were questioned after an FBI reviewer found that she made claims about her matches that were “beyond the acceptable limits of science.” Court filings show that Gilchrist received her only in-depth instruction in hair comparison from the FBI in 1981 and that she, like many practitioners, went largely unsupervised.

Federal officials, asked about state and local problems, said the FBI has committed significant resources to speed the federal review but that state and local police and prosecutors would have to decide whether to undertake comparable efforts.

FBI spokeswoman Ann Todd defended the training of local examiners as “continuing education” intended to supplement formal training provided by other labs. The FBI did not qualify examiners, a responsibility shared by individual labs and certification bodies, she said.

Michael Wright, president of the National District Attorneys Association, said local prosecutors cannot simply order labs to audit all or even a sample of cases handled by FBI-trained examiners, because such an undertaking might be time- and cost-prohibitive for smaller agencies.

-------------

Here are some more articles on how corrupt or incompetent forensic technicians help cops make themselves look like heroes by framing almost everybody the cops accuse of a crime.

washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/local/forensic-analysis-methods

Tom Horne proposes arming 1 educator per school

Currently the government has created the problem by passing laws that only allow cops or police officers to carry guns at schools.

The real solution is to repeal that law and let school employees carry guns if they want to.

Source

Horne proposes arming 1 educator per school

By Alia Beard Rau The Republic | azcentral.com

Wed Dec 26, 2012 12:52 PM

Arizona’s attorney general wants to arm school principals.

Tom Horne says he has found the “golden mean” between allowing all teachers to carry firearms and exposing children to tragedies like the school shooting in Connecticut. He is proposing that only the principal or one other staff member at each school be trained and then allowed to carry a firearm at school.

“Some have proposed teachers bringing guns to school, but I think that would create more danger than it would solve,” Horne said. “But if we did nothing, we might regret it if another incident occurs that might have been prevented.”

Such a proposal would require a change in state law, which currently only allows police officers to carry weapons in K-12 schools. Horne said Rep. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, will propose a bill next session. Gowan could not immediately be reached for comment.

Horne said he has not spoken to Gov. Jan Brewer about whether she would support such a measure should it pass the Legislature. Brewer typically doesn’t comment on specific legislation before it crosses her desk, but she has vetoed bills allowing guns in public buildings and on college campuses in recent years.

Horne, who formerly served as the state’s superintendent of public instruction, said the ideal solution to gun violence in schools would be to have an armed, school resource officer in every school. But he said budget constraints make that a challenge. School resource officers are trained law enforcement officers. The state in recent years cut funding for the SRO program.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, Mohave County Sheriff Tom Sheahan and Apache County Sheriff Joe Dedman do support the proposal.

Horne said schools would not be required to arm a staff member, but that the program would give them the option. If they choose to do so, the designated principal or staff member would get free firearms training from former law enforcement officers in Horne’s office or participating sheriff’s offices.

“They would not just get marksmanship training, but also be taught good judgment, when to shoot, when not to shoot,” Horne said. “We would teach them the use of force laws, defensive tactics and properly securing the firearm.”

Horne said he came up with the idea over the holidays. He said he doesn’t know of any other state with a similar program.

“As far as I know, it’ s a new idea,” he said. “It’s an original Tom Horne idea.”

The Arizona Legislature in recent years has gained a reputation for loosening state gun restrictions, including passing a law to allow Arizonans to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, said he fears Gowan’s bill could be successful.

“This is the craziest idea, and we knew something like it was coming,” Campbell, who is a gun owner, said. “But this is an extremist reaction that’s going to do nothing to help the safety of our schools at the end of the day. This is the knee-jerk reaction we need to avoid.”

Campbell said he plans to try another tactic and will propose in early January a package of bills to deal with gun reform, fully funding the school resource officer program and addressing mental health issues.

“Tom Horne talks about the fact that we can’t fund school resource officers, but we can fund a lot of things in this state if we put the money in the right place, as opposed to funding private prisons at a $50 million price tag or a lot of other things,” he said. “There’s a lot of money in this state going to the wrong priorities.”

Campbell said he has been hearing from teachers, parents and law enforcement officers who support the Legislature funding school resource officers.

“The SRO program typically has been supported by both parties,” he said. “I’m hoping partisanship doesn’t get in the way of this issue. I don’t think there’s anything more important than this.”

More articles on Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne.