Arizona Prosecutor Who Brought Bogus Gang Charges Against Protesters Files Ridiculous Defamation Suit Against Her Boss

from the going-to-be-hard-surmounting-the-'truth'-defense dept

Protests against police violence erupted around the country following the killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, by Minneapolis (MN) police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvin ended Floyd's life by placing his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes… and for more than three minutes after another officer informed Chauvin he could no longer detect Floyd's pulse.

The protests continued for months. Some were in solidarity. Others were provoked by recent acts of police violence. Protests in Phoenix, Arizona were nothing out of the ordinary. But the law enforcement response certainly was. It wasn't that the cops did anything that was unusual, per se. They did the normal stuff: they responded violently to protests against police violence, attacking protesters, stripping them of their belongings, and justifying these actions with overblown claims about fearing for their safety.

But it was prosecutors in Maricopa County, Arizona who took things to the next level. Apparently working in conjunction with a number of law enforcement entities, lead prosecutor April Sponsel, an attorney with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, lied to a grand jury and abused local laws to add gang enhancements to the criminal charges brought against 15 arrested protesters. Sponsel, working with the Phoenix PD, claimed the use of black umbrellas (which protesters used to deflect tear gas canisters and "non-lethal" ammunition) and the acronym "ACAB" ["All Cops Are Bastards"] made the arrested protesters gang members.

This was serious shit. People arrested for rioting, failure to disperse, resisting arrest, or disorderly conduct were being saddled with (completely bullshit) gang charges that had the potential to add another 10 years to their sentences if convicted.

Prosecutor April Sponsel appeared to have been integral to the addition of gang crime sentence enhancements. The wife of a state trooper, Sponsel was the one who presented allegedly false information to a grand jury for the purpose of portraying the arrested protesters as a violent gang, rather than people coincidentally united by their desire to protest police violence. Shortly after the news broke about these bullshit prosecutions, Sponsel was placed on administrative leave while an outside investigation -- requested by Maricopa County prosecutor Allister Adel -- commenced.

Sponsel has been in the public eye for months. And she doesn't appear to like it. She may have enjoyed the backchannel support of local law enforcement as she found ways to stick it to people who were upset with the law enforcement status quo, but she apparently feels litigious about being called out over her gang enhancement bullshit.

April Sponsel, the lead prosecutor who handled the now-dismissed criminal case, filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel and the county itself in superior court on Friday seeking $10 million.

The Arizona Republic obtained a copy of the lawsuit on Tuesday, which asserts Adel defamed Sponsel in the media, invaded her privacy and caused the county to breach Sponsel’s employment contract.

Inexplicably, the Arizona Republic has decided not to share the obtained copy with readers. Instead, the copy of the lawsuit, embedded below, comes courtesy of Paul Weich, who is running for a position in the Arizona House. He also runs a blog covering area political activity.

Back to the matter at hand: Sponsel is claiming [PDF] the County Attorney defamed her by turning her into a scapegoat for prosecutions that resulted in significant political and public blowback. She claims Adel was fully aware of what was happening and never made any move to alter the course of the prosecution. She also claims she had full support of law enforcement when making the decision to treat the ACAB protesters as a gang. This is unsurprising. But it won't do much to help her win her lawsuit. All it really does is make involved law enforcement members look as petty and ignorant as Sponsel.

For instance:

The claim says she called Phoenix police Sgt. Doug McBride, a gang expert, who agreed the protesters should be classified as a gang on Oct. 20, 2020.

Of course a cop would want this to happen. It was, after all, a protest against law enforcement. If given the opportunity to make anti-police violence protesters suffer, law enforcement officers will opt to do so nearly every time. And it wasn't just this so-called "gang expert." It was every law enforcement agency involved in the arrests.

The lawsuit describes a meeting on Oct. 21, 2020 where “there were more than 30 law enforcement officers in the room, including a number of FBI and Phoenix Police Sergeants, Lieutenants, Commanders and Assistant Chiefs. No one in the meeting was opposed to the criminal street gang charges, and all agreed the charges were appropriate.”

Welcome to the herd and its mentality, April. Surely you were already aware of it. And you must also realize it isn't an adequate defense of your actions, nor does it further the defamation claims being brought against someone who apparently wasn't in the room during this discussion: County Attorney Allister Adel.

Making this battle even more uphill is the fact that an independent judicial review [PDF] of the arrests and prosecutions delivered by an Arizona judge last August contains plenty of evidence Sponsel pushed for gang charges and crafted her prosecution to bring the full pain of these sentence enhancements.

There's a lot in there that points to Sponsel being the person pushing for gang enhancements, over the protests of others. And there's evidence that she moved ahead with a grand jury presentation before a scheduled meeting with the County Attorney's office during which the disposition of these cases was supposed to be discussed.

On Friday October 23, 2020, according to his statement, [Maricopa County Attorney's Office Division Chief] Vince Goddard got a call from April Sponsel informing him there was going to be a press conference at the Phoenix Police Department and they wanted MCAO Allister Adel to attend. The chief of police was also asked and/or was scheduled to attend. He was told this was going to be the “big gang” case that she had talked about in September. Since he only heard about approximately 4 people, he was not sure what she was talking about. He again told her he did not like the “big case theory” where you have limited targets and you charge a large group people. He did not attend the press conference nor did he know if the County Attorney did. No information was provided if a press conference was held.

[...]

During the call with Vince Goddard, the subject of “warrants” was discussed, however, [Chief Deputy County Attorney] Ken Vick assumed he meant search warrants for houses and/or phone records. He was not aware nor was he told a Grand Jury presentation was scheduled for October 27th which would have been before the meeting on October 30th. He provided me the email exchange between Vince Goddard and himself which showed Ken Vick’s surprise and dismay that they had gone to the Grand Jury prior to the meeting.

This is going to make it very difficult to prove Adel was aware of the charges Sponsel was seeking and at least tacitly approved of them by not making any effort to stop her. So is this, from the report released last August:

Based upon the information given to the undersigned, the County Attorney Allister Adel was not briefed on the Grand Jury presentation in this case in the ten (10) days prior to the Grand Jury presentation. CA Adel never got a head's up that the case was going to a Grand Jury nor the charges April Sponsel would be seeking in a draft indictment. The County Attorney did not know a Grand Jury presentation was taking place on October 27th for arrests made on October 17th. The County Attorney was made aware on October 30th about the October 27th Grand Jury Indictment after the media made an inquiry with the office's communication director on Thursday, October 29th. The County Attorney did not attend the ‘incident review” on October 30th since she had been hospitalized on October 28th and she was not discharged until October 31st. This is collaborated by Ken Vick who was not told about the Grand Jury, nor the charges being sought and he did not know what was presented until the day before the October 30th “incident review”.

This lawsuit looks like the flailing of a suddenly toxic prosecutorial asset who thinks she was treated unfairly when the rest of Maricopa County Attorney's Office distanced itself from her and her overzealous prosecutions. The judicial investigation shows Sponsel went a bit rogue, bypassing most of the Attorney's Office to pursue her own vendetta. Unsurprisingly, when it blew up in her face, Allister Adel distanced herself from Sponsel and her actions.

So, this debacle will continue to make headlines for a few more years. No matter how this lawsuit goes, it's not going to rehabilitate Sponsel's image. Win or lose, it's already on the record she was the one that came up with the idea of saddling arrested protesters with gang charges. And she was the one who decided the interests of justice should take a backseat to her vindictive prosecutions.

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Filed Under: acab, allister adel, april sponsel, arizona, defamation, gang charges, maricopa county, police, police violence, protests, slapp


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  1. icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 18 Feb 2022 @ 9:56am

    Ah the Trump Defense.
    I did nothing wrong and even if I did, it was your fault.

    I wonder if they have a conviction integrity office, given she was willing to lie to grand jury to trump up more charges it is safe to assume she has lied before to get her way.

    How do all of these bad apples keep getting into the barrels?!
    Its almost like someone is picking the worst fruit on purpose.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    That One Guy (profile), 18 Feb 2022 @ 10:13am

    Not so fun on the other side now is it?

    Decided to screw over protesters and then twist the knife by classifying them as gang members, then proceeds to throw an absolute fit screaming about 'defamation!' when an accurate portrayal of her actions leaves her looking less than perfect and professional.

    The idea that there might be consequences for her dishonesty must have come as a real shock to such a charming person, hopefully the judge will laugh her 'it's not fair that my actions impacted me too!' lawsuit out of the court.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Feb 2022 @ 10:23am

    Sponsel: I made a fool of myself, and you just stood there!

    Adel: It didn't look like you needed help.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    MathFox, 18 Feb 2022 @ 10:30am

    TAC, if you were a healthy apple and were thrown into a barrel of rotten apples, wouldn't you try to jump out?
    I suspect that the people with an ounce of integrity either refuse the offer to join, or leave the corps as soon as they (financially) can.

    So, what you get is that the bad apples stick and get promoted to further corrupt the organization.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    Thad (profile), 18 Feb 2022 @ 11:01am

    Re:

    Ah the Trump Defense.

    In Maricopa County it's known as the Arpaio Defense.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Feb 2022 @ 6:17pm

    Phone records are incredibly sensitive.

    During the call with Vince Goddard, the subject of “warrants” was discussed, however, [Chief Deputy County Attorney] Ken Vick assumed he meant search warrants for houses and/or phone records.

    Search warrants for phone records are dangerous to privacy and the 4th Amendment. Who knows how far law enforcement will search (e.g. looking for evidence of drugs but searches through literally everything on the phone) and how long they will retain the data for unrelated purposes?

    she was not discharged until October 31st. This is
    collaborated by Ken Vick who was not told about the Grand Jury

    The report meant to say "corroborated" instead of "collaborated", it seems.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Nope, 18 Feb 2022 @ 6:34pm

    Re:

    Alas, apples can't jump.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    Eldakka (profile), 18 Feb 2022 @ 8:54pm

    The claim says she called Phoenix police Sgt. Doug McBride, a gang expert, who agreed the protesters should be classified as a gang on Oct. 20, 2020.

    Rather than helping Sponsel's cause, that seems to be implicating other people in lieing in front of a Grand Jury.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 19 Feb 2022 @ 10:23am

    Re:

    They have tests to keep the healthy apples out.

    Occasionally a good one gets in there & tries to save the barrel.
    The blue wall closes in, send them into danger without backup, mistreat them, and generally behave in ways toward them like they are the problem.

    Protecting the image at the cost of destroying the image & for some reason no one seems to be able to convince politicians that this is bad & we'll support them even without getting good soundbites from FOP.

    The super simple answer is most people don't care until its their kid executed during a botched raid...
    (Someone should do a data dive & answer the question I already know in my head... most no knock warrants are for POC because Black people have super powers.)

    They keep the public divided pretending that "Black Lives Matter" is a demand for special treatment not an outcry that murdering someone & no one held responsible isn't acceptable.
    They manage to release every bad thing the victim did in life within minutes of killing them to make it acceptable because they were bad people... but we can't see use of force complaints against the officers with the same speed or if ever.

    People worry that without these cops, they might be attacked by roving gangs of superpredators, because the lies have mindshare, & there is always a tidbit that makes it okay that they murdered someone.

    That chart showing you are more likely to die at the hands of a cop than a terrorist goes here.
    Yet we can't find any money to protect citizens from serious threats that are much more likely.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 19 Feb 2022 @ 10:24am

    Re:

    Its Maricopa County....there is plenty of corruption available.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Feb 2022 @ 6:27pm

    Lostinlodos and restless94110 whimpering in 3, 2, 1...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2022 @ 5:39am

    thrown under the bus..

    i feel the bus will need new shocks after this one.....
    FOLONY charges are in order for this one!

    link to this | view in thread ]


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