Former Maricopa County sheriff’s Capt. Joel Fox favored loyalty over honesty, lying about his role in a political-action committee raising funds for Sheriff Joe Arpaio in an effort to protect former Chief Deputy David Hendershott, a Maricopa County prosecutor on Thursday told a hearing officer who will determine if Fox can get his job back.

Fox was fired from the Sheriff’s Office in October after a lengthy internal investigation determined Fox had violated the office’s policies that prohibit lying when, among other untruths, he said he alone was responsible for a political-action committee that raised money for Arpaio in the 2008 election.

Maricopa County prosecutor Clarisse McCormick said Fox’s efforts to cover up the roles of Hendershott and former Deputy Chief Larry Black in the political-action committee motivated Fox to lie and eventually got him fired.

“An officer, a captain, was forced to choose between honesty and a twisted sense of loyalty … Fox chose loyalty,” McCormick told administrative law Judge Robert Sparks. “Joel Fox was willing to be the fall guy in a three-man scheme to funnel tens of thousands of dollars to the Arizona Republican Party.”

Republican Party leaders took more than $100,000 from SCA, or Sheriff’s Command Association, and put the money into an independent-expenditure committee called Arizonans For Public Safety. The independent committee put the money toward ads targeting Arpaio’s opponent, Dan Saban, and the candidate running against former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, Tim Nelson.

Sheriff’s investigators determined that Fox lied to criminal investigators from the Attorney General’s Office when Fox told them he was the lone decision maker with SCA, but subsequent information showed Hendershott and Black were involved.

Fox pointed out that he was never charged with a crime, only two civil violations of election laws, and that he was being honest with investigators when Fox said SCA was all his doing.

“From the beginning of the SCA matter I took full responsibility for my actions and somehow they’ve turned that into a dirty word,” Fox said. “It seems to me, sir, that all they want to do is win now. All I want is a fair hearing.”

The hearings are expected to take place over 10 days next month. The two sides have submitted a list of 36 witnesses they expect to call, including Arpaio, Hendershott, Black and a host of current and former sheriff’s personnel.

Chris Baker, who helped coordinate the SCA-financed ad in 2008, was the first to take the stand in the hearing Thursday.

Baker testified that he originally lied to the Attorney General’s investigators conducting the SCA probe when Baker said that Hendershott was not involved with the group. Baker said he lied because he was afraid of Hendershott, due to the former chief deputy’s reputation for having a short temper.

“I feared for myself and my family … what caused me to have that fear was I read the newspapers, I’d read articles about some of their actions,” Baker said, referring to sheriff’s deputies “in an unmarked car” appearing outside the homes of Arpaio critics. “That led me to believe that this is something (Hendershott) might be capable of.”

Ed Moriarity, an attorney representing Fox, later got Baker to concede that he had never filed a police report or complaint against Hendershott and never shared those concerns with anyone until Baker told a criminal investigator that fear of Hendershott motivated his lying.

Hendershott and Black, both at-will employees of the Sheriff’s Office, were fired in April but resigned before the terminations could take effect.

Fox was the only member of the group who had job protections available through the county’s merit system and he has taken advantage of those opportunities, requesting further investigation on a number of the allegations against him and, now, fighting his termination with the hearings.

Fox also fought to keep the extensive records related to the investigation into his conduct under seal until after his appeals were exhausted, but a judge ruled in November that a multimillion-dollar wrongful-termination claim Fox filed against the county, among other factors, waived Fox’s confidentiality rights.

The hearings continue Monday and are open to the public at Fox’s request.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 26th, 2012 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Arizona Republic News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.