 The saga of the corrupt Maricopa County Supervisors never ends, and continues to get worse. Remember when they went after Ogletree Deakins, one of the top law firms in the country, ranked as a Tier 1 law firm by U.S. News & World Report, with over 500 attorneys and 40 offices around the country? Ogletree has performed work for Maricopa County government for years, it is considered one of the most stable law firms in the Valley. When the Supervisors went on their jihad against other County officials, Ogletree happened to be doing work for Sheriff Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas. The Supervisors tried to cut off ALL attorneys from representing Arpaio and Thomas, including Ogletree Deakins, which had no partisan bias either way, they were just doing their job. Then the Supervisors started investigating the firm! They finally fired the firm and refused to pay them for work performed! This was all so Arpaio and Thomas would have no legal representation to fight back against the Supervisors' jihad against them in the press, courts, and through their legions of attorneys (remember the Supervisors and judges had ELEVEN outside law firms - mostly the top law firms in the Valley - representing them in the RICO case against Arpaio and Thomas, whereas they would not allow Arpaio and Thomas to have ANY outside attorneys in the RICO case, they spent thousands of dollars fighting to keep them from getting any attorneys!).
Ogletree Deakins has now filed a Notice of Claim (which is like a preliminary lawsuit when you are suing government) against the Supervisors for $10 million. According to the Arizona Republic,
The eight-page claim asserts county officials repeatedly defamed Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart PC, wrongfully fired the firm, and refused to pay $1.1 million in attorney's fees. The firm is willing to "resolve its disputes" with the county for full payment of the invoices and attorney's fees, plus a public apology from county officials and a "formal retraction of the countless defamatory, and provable false statements certain county officials and agents have uttered." If the Board of Supervisors do not agree to those terms, Ogletree demands $11.2 million. The claim says Ogletree "is loath to burden the county taxpayers with yet another massive obligation brought about by the wrong-headed acts of the county's officials and agents," adding that "it is truly unfortunate, and even downright despicable that certain county officials and agents have repeatedly defamed Ogletree and its attorneys without the slightest basis in fact." Astonishingly, the Supervisors are trying to prevent the claim from going through. The claim was filed in court in time on the last day possible before the statute of limitations ran out, March 21, but the Supervisors are claiming it is not valid since it was not "served" on them until March 22. We smell a rat. The Supervisors have consistently denied any accountability for their actions. They act with impunity and have unlimited access and control over our tax dollars. This comes as no surprise that they will do anything they can to escape accountability, even if it means smearing innocent people. We are looking forward to the slate of Tea Party candidates who will be running against them in 2012. Stay tuned, there are some really impressive candidates who will uphold fiscally conservative principles and behave ethically while in office instead of going on vindictive vendettas against conservative county electeds.
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