Megan Cassidy

The Republic | azcentral.com

A Superior Court judge will decide this week whether to order prosecutors to turn over evidence involving a Maricopa County sheriff's internal investigation into now-deceased former Deputy Ramon "Charley" Armendariz to attorneys defending a business owner against illegal-hiring allegations.

Snags in the case are among the first in what promises to be a torrent of prosecutorial challenges stemming from Armendariz's alleged on-duty behavior — long-running misconduct that threatens to further tarnish the integrity of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's signature law-enforcement efforts against illegal immigration.

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Armendariz, who played a role in a recent ID-theft case against Uncle Sam's restaurant owner Bret Frimmel and manager Lisa Norton, was recently found to be hoarding drugs and a large stash of IDs and license plates in his home.

Armendariz reportedly made statements to sheriff's officials that implicated others in the human-smuggling unit of wrongdoing, said Frimmel's defense attorney, Paul Charlton, citing a sheriff administrator's statements in a recent hearing.

Charlton asserted that Arpaio's agency has in its possession evidence — e-mails, personnel files and interview tapes — that could be favorable to Frimmel that has not been released to the state and thus the defense team, and that the Maricopa County Attorney's Office has been complicit in allowing the Sheriff's Office to withhold exculpatory information.

"The general tenor is such that the prosecution has allowed the Sheriff's Office to do as it will," he said.

Charlton said the defense is legally entitled to this information, but because of the prosecution's passivity, the defense's only recourse was to ask the court to wield its judicial authority.

Namely, the defendants sought information relating to Armendariz, other deputies and defendants in the case, as well as any prior knowledge the Sheriff's Office's may have had regarding Frimmel's potential involvement with a federal civil-rights case against the agency.

The January arrests of the co-defendants marked the first time employers had been taken into custody based on charges stemming from the Sheriff's Office's Criminal Employment Squad.

The squad purportedly targets both ID thieves and those who knowingly hire them, but just three employers have been arrested since 2008, compared with nearly 800 lower-level workers.

The squad conducted a raid at Uncle Sam's in July, arresting nine employees on charges related to forgery and identity theft.

Charlton said sheriff's officials initially told Frimmel he was a victim, but that empathy dissolved once they discovered that Frimmel was contacted by federal investigators.

The Justice Department sued Arpaio in May 2012, following a three-year investigation into allegations of discriminatory practices against Latinos by his office.

Charlton said his client was asked to participate in the investigation after the July raid and said sheriff's officials may have been aware of this.

Charlton said it was not inconceivable that sheriff's officials would target their political enemies, referencing Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas' failed corruption investigations.

Deputy County Attorney Jamie Oliver responded to Charlton's requests in a follow-up hearing Tuesday morning.

Oliver said most of what Charlton demanded was available through other avenues, and that defense attorneys could file an open-records request with the Sheriff's Office. The state has already fulfilled its duty, he said.

As for the Department of Justice investigation, Oliver said the Sheriff's Office has blatantly denied any knowledge of Frimmel's potential cooperation with federal investigators and that there is no evidence to suggest the contrary.

Oliver said Armendariz played a "very minor" role in the Uncle Sam's case, and said the defense counsel's request for information surrounding Armendariz was overly broad and overreaching.

The prosecuting attorney bristled at what she perceived as Charlton's comparison of the current office's administration with that of the now-disbarred Thomas.

Oliver said Charlton's insinuations against the Sheriff's Office were politically motivated and serve only to "fan the flames of the media attention."

Judge Teresa Sanders is scheduled to rule Friday morning on the defense's motion to compel discovery.