Allister Adel, Maricopa County’s embattled county attorney. is reportedly returning to work Monday after entering an inpatient treatment facility in August for treatment for alcohol abuse, an eating disorder, and anxiety.
It has been a rough summer for Adel professionally – defamation allegations brought by an employee, a $120 million demand by several protesters to settle malicious prosecution claims, and a federal lawsuit which alleges Adel and her office routinely violate the constitutional rights of many criminal defendants.
Then there was the decision by the county’s board of supervisors to fight a second subpoena issued by the Arizona Senate in July related to the 2020 General Election. The fight related to the audit blew up Aug. 26 when Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich pledged to block payment to the county of more than $676 million in state shared revenues unless the subpoenas were fully complied with.
We now know that three days later, Adel was in rehab without the five members of the board of supervisors knowing about her absence. Nor were any of the county’s other elected officials informed of her whereabouts even though they rely on Adel’s advice on a variety of legal matters.
Adel was appointed as county attorney by the county board in October 2019 to complete the term of Bill Montgomery, who was selected by Gov. Doug Ducey for a seat on the Arizona Supreme Court. She then won election in November 2020 even though she could not campaign for several weeks while hospitalized with a head injury suffered in a fall at home in October.
According to recent statements by Adel, her fall was purely an accident and unrelated to any other issues.
Although Adel issued a public statement on Sept. 10 about her personal situation, the announcement provided very little details about the operation of the county attorney’s office and its 1,000 employees other than to say she was in “daily contact.”
It was then revealed Adel made her public disclosure only after Sheriff Paul Penzone demanded she do so. Otherwise, he would inform those county officials who by law rely on the county attorney’s office for legal advice and representation.
Since Adel’s disclosure, many elected officials, business and political leaders, and community members have expressed their well-wishes to Adel. Some, like Penzone, have called on her to take a leave of absence and identify those who would be in charge of the civil, criminal, and administrative duties of the office.
Sending my love & support to my friend @AllisterAdel, her family, & and all of MCAO during this difficult time. It takes immense courage & honesty to confront issues of this magnitude. I pray she makes a complete recovery. https://t.co/mLQD6GE6bx
— Bill Gates (@billgatesaz) September 10, 2021
Others, such as the chairperson of the Maricopa County Democratic Party, are using Adel’s situation for political points by demanding her immediate resignation, even though thousands of Arizonans seek similar treatment each year without fear or expectation of losing their jobs.
Last Friday, MCDP Chair Nancy Schriber called for Adel to give up her elected position, alleging the county attorney “cannot focus on her recovery while simultaneously head an agency of over 1,000.” Schriber’s comments have been roundly condemned on a bipartisan level.
For his part, Penzone had several reasons to be concerned about what was happening in the county attorney’s office. His staff deal on a daily basis with the 300 deputy county attorneys who serve as prosecutors of the 40,000 criminal cases filed in county courts every years. He was also drawn into the Senate subpoena dispute based on concerns that the county’s routers could put sensitive law enforcement data at risk if the routers were released to the Senate’s audit team.
The recent threat from Brnovich about withholding the county’s portion of state shared revenues would have crippled the sheriff’s office, which also runs the county jail. And at the time, Adel was not available to direct the legal response.
While most of the response to Adel’s announcement has come with words of support, some within her office are concerned with the lack of public knowledge of who is calling the shots on a daily basis, particularly in light of several high-profile allegations against Adel and her supervision of her staff.
“There will continue to be public confusion and internal concern unless County Attorney Adel issues a clear, countywide statement of who has what authority over what issues within our office,” one deputy county attorney told Arizona Daily Independent. “The impression that some staff members are acting with impunity over the last few months has a true basis in fact.”
Those concerns include allegations put forth by April Sponsel, a deputy county attorney who works as a prosecutor. It was Sponsel whose name appears on court documents which describe several protesters at a Black Lives Matter event as a “criminal street gang,” a plan she says Adel knew of and supported.
Sponsel, who is currently on paid leave, recently served a $10 million notice of claim against the county for statements and actions taken by Adel and others in denying knowledge of the controversial prosecutions. And those prosecutions are the subject of a demand for $119 million as settlement with Maricopa County to avoid multiple wrongful prosecution lawsuits involving nearly three dozen protesters.
Then there is the federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU against Adel which alleges that prosecutors routinely penalize Early Disposition Court defendants who do not accept the first plea offer put forth.
According to many defense attorneys and civil libertarian advocates, EDC plea offers often expire before prosecutors have even turned over basic case materials such as police reports, witness names, and crime lab results to the defendant’s counsel. Many argue EDC cases put lawyers in an unethical situation and violate defendant’s constitutional rights.
On Aug. 25, three of Adel’s deputy county attorneys filed a motion for dismissal of the ACLU’s lawsuit. Chief Judge G. Murray Snow of the U.S. District Court in Phoenix issued a series of filing deadlines last week in the case and he is expected to issue a ruling on the motion to dismiss by the end of October.