An anti-corruption squad that led the failed investigations of several Maricopa County officials and was accused of being wielded as a political tool has been disbanded by Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The breakup of the unit is the latest fallout from allegations in a memo written by a deputy chief accusing Arpaio's top officer of misconduct and mismanagement. The memo became public last week.

The unit's investigations ultimately spawned a federal abuse-of-power probe that is still under way, and the repercussions of its probes have damaged careers in the Sheriff's and County Attorney's offices.

Arpaio said this week that he has shut down the unit, overseen by Chief Deputy David Hendershott, who is under investigation, but would discuss reforming it with the new county attorney after November's election.

Even if the unit is reinstated, it is unlikely to resemble the team of detectives that launched nearly a dozen high-profile criminal investigations of local, county and state officials in recent years.

Republican Bill Montgomery, who will become county attorney if he defeats Libertarian Michael Kielsky as expected, said there is a place for a unit to investigate allegations of corruption.

But he said cases involving elected county officials would need to be sent to other agencies to avoid conflicts of interest.

"I'm very sensitive to the environment we have in county government," Montgomery said. "I want to avoid a repeat of what developed between county agencies and officials."

Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas established the Maricopa County Anti-Corruption Enforcement division, or MACE, in January 2007 as a joint task force.

The unit, which relied heavily on sheriff's detectives who worked with prosecutors as cases progressed, was plagued almost from its inception with allegations from a number of its targets that it was a political tool instead of a police squad.

The unit was responsible for probes of the Maricopa County Community College District, former Maricopa County Schools Superintendent Sandra Dowling, county Supervisors Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox, and a host of other elected and appointed county officials who were targeted through a broad racketeering complaint.

Most of those high-profile cases stalled as they made their way through the legal process.

Dowling, indicted on 25 felony counts, was convicted of a single misdemeanor charge not included in the original indictment.

The cases against Stapley and Wilcox were scuttled, in part because Thomas was found to have a conflict of interest in prosecuting the supervisors. Gila County Attorney Daisy Flores continues to investigate allegations against Stapley and Wilcox.

Aside from Dowling's misdemeanor plea deal, the unit's lone conviction was that of former Harquahala Fire District Chief Randall Long, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to theft in 2009.

A lengthy and detailed memo from one of Arpaio's chief deputies that recently became public includes allegations that the unit was used by Hendershott to settle political scores.

The memo also asserted that Hendershott's heavy-handed oversight of the squad led to high turnover and low morale.

The 63-page memo from Deputy Chief Frank Munnell includes detailed accounts of Hendershott coordinating cases with former Deputy County Attorney Lisa Aubuchon, who is alleged to have told one of the unit's detectives to use "creative writing" for a search warrant on one of the cases.

Aubuchon's employment with the County Attorney's Office was terminated this week amid allegations in a dismissal report that she abused "the awesome power of the prosecutor's office."

Hendershott is on medical leave and has been cut off from contact with the Sheriff's Office while Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu investigates allegations against the chief deputy. Some of those allegations are related to the MACE unit's work.

Thomas, who was defeated in the Republican primary for Arizona attorney general, suffered political damage as well when records released by interim County Attorney Rick Romley portrayed the unit as reckless and intent on targeting political foes.

Thomas and Aubuchon both are now subjects of ethics probes by the State Bar of Arizona.

The investigative tactics that the unit detectives used in probing allegations against county officials are now part of a U.S. Department of Justice criminal abuse-of-power investigation into the Sheriff's Office.

Montgomery said he hopes to avoid any such political conflicts if he is elected county attorney.

Still, Arpaio said this week that he is not ready to permanently kill the squad, despite the bitterness and dissension it brought to the Sheriff's Office.

"I'm not going to comment on the results (of the investigations), I'm not going to get into all that," Arpaio said. "Fraud units take years and years to do it. It takes time. That's why you need the personnel to develop these types of cases. We can't do it overnight. Sometimes, you clear people if you do a thorough investigation."