The Department of Economic Security recently announced that ones of it’s investigators was arrested for theft in part for pawning state-owned firearms. This is just another embarrassing event to the Governor’s Office after Governor Ducey forced DES Director Timothy Jeffries to resign after now debunked rumors of weapon and ammunition hoarding in November 2016.
DES Investigator Autumn Maya was arrested with her husband Phoenix Police Detective Mike Maya for various theft offenses related to pawning state own firearms. A closer look at the timeline points to a much more serious problem stemming from Autumn Maya’s previous employer, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. In 2016 Autumn Maya was the evidence custodian for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and a reserve Special Agent. In July of 2016 She was hired by DES as a civilian employee to assist training of new employees. After the Governor forced Director Jeffries to resign along with several key staff members Maya remained in her position at DES for almost a year. DES Chief Agent Terry Azbill hired her as a sworn police investigator in August of 2017 almost a year after Jeffries had left the agency. DES has around ten investigators with full peace officer status. For Maya to be hired as a full authority peace officer she had to undergo a complete AZPOST background investigation identical to all police officers in Arizona. This background which is heavily regulated in statute requires the previous police agency to fully cooperate with the background and make all records available under R13-4-108. This is where the water gets a bit murky and the intra-bureaucratic finger pointing starts.
AZPOST records indicate that Maya was a reserve special agent for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office from 12-15-2015 to 7-26-2017 with no reported misconduct or integrity issues by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. All police agencies must notify AZPOST of any issues related to integrity or misconduct upon separation of employment under R13-4-108.
In other media reports Ryan Anderson from the Arizona Attorney General’s office told reporters that Maya had “integrity issues” while employed at the AG’s office and another investigation were underway on Maya including the familiar pawning of state owned weapons. When asked why the AG’s office had not reported this to AZPOST as required by law, Anderson would not comment. Neither DES or the Attorney General’s Office would elaborate further or produce requested public documents.
The AG’s office is in very rough spot. With Anderson’s zeal to dirty Maya, he may have exposed the AG’s office to severe evidentiary issues they desperately wanted to keep under the rug. Autumn Maya was the evidence custodian for the AG’s office and controlled all the evidence statewide for many years for all the criminal cases the AG’s Special Agents have investigated. This mudslinging effort gets much messier and Ryan is probably wishing he wasn’t so quick to dirty Maya.
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office has a permanent seat on the AZPOST Board. Paul Ahler is not only the Criminal Division Chief prosecutor but also a AZPOST Board member and has been for a couple years. Paul Ahler most certainly knows the AZPOST rules for reporting integrity issues since he sits on a Board where these rules are explained and enforced on a regular basis and has been a prosecutor in Arizona for many years. Being an experienced prosecutor Ahler is far too familiar the reporting of bad cops. Ahler only has a single vote of a twelve-member board who votes to strip bad cops of police officer certifications. The question still exists why Ahler, the Chief Prosecutor at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office would allow erroneous information to be entered into AZPOST permanent records and not notify DES of a police officer with “integrity issues” and under investigation. The answer may be rooted in that Ahler also has a duty to report integrity and chain of custody issues to perhaps several hundred criminal defendants and their attorneys under the Brady Giglio rule that requires criminal prosecutors to notify defense attorneys of any integrity issues relating to the potential witnesses or evidence of their cases. With Maya being the evidence custodian and having access to all the evidence and evidence records for the AG’s Office, this could jeopardize several hundred cases spanning back many years.
Ryan Anderson may soon have that “got a minute” talk with Mark Brnovich about his quick willingness to dirty an already exposed bad cop and to publicly push blame to another governmental agency for her actions when the AG’s office could have stopped it a year ago. Governor Ducey can only blame the AG’s Office for not notifying AZPOST and DES of a bad cop and not following the existing law all while criminal defense attorneys quickly review cases from the AG’s office for appeals based on the discovery of new evidence and possible prosecutorial misconduct. The old saying, its always the cover-up that causes careers to dissolve.