Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s top lawyer disbarred, facing criminal charges
Source: Raw Story
They were Republican Arizona’s golden boys, the plain-spoken, get-tough sheriff and his legal and political foil, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and attorney Andrew Thomas. According to a post at Talking Points Memo, Thomas “might have had a bright career in Arizona politics,” but instead is today facing disbarment, criminal charges and professional disgrace.
In his six-year reign as Maricopa County’s top prosecutor, Thomas and Sheriff Arpaio went on a legal rampage against their perceived political enemies, drumming up and pursuing criminal charges that they knew were false, charges that rarely held up under scrutiny. As a result, say investigators, Thomas “undermined the public trust and inflicted great damage to the system of justice. The only way to restore that trust and to repair the damage to the system is to disbar Thomas.”
Those remarks came at the end of a two-month investigation last year that implicated Thomas as well as two aides, Lisa Aubuchon and Rachel Alexander, whose law licenses are also in jeopardy. Thomas’s attorneys have called the investigation a partisan witch hunt, even quoting the film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” in their final filing on behalf of Thomas in December.
“We found a witch,” they wrote, purportedly speaking as the public officials who filed charges against Thomas, “May we burn her?”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/10/sheriff-joe-arpaios-top-lawyer-facing-disbarment/
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