Confidential Informant Files Motions to Intervene, Disqualify Judge From
Arpaio Case
MAINSTREAM MEDIA FAILS TO REPORT FISA JUDGE'S
CONFIRMATION OF CODES SUPPLIED BY FORMER CIA CONTRACTOR DENNIS MONTGOMERY
by Sharon Rondeau
(May 7, 2015) — A KPTV article dated April 25, 2015
describing the events of the fourth day of a civil contempt hearing against
Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio and
Maricopa County claimed that "none" of the information provided by a
confirmed former CIA contractor, Dennis Montgomery, to Arpaio and his staff in
regard to CIA surveillance "was found to be credible."
However, the official court
transcripts present the facts differently as testifed to by Maricopa County
Deputy Chief Gerard (Jerry) Sheridan.
The trial opened on April 21 as a
result of a contempt charge leveled by U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow
claiming that Arpaio defied a December 23, 2011 preliminary injunction to cease stopping individuals solely
on the suspicion that they might be illegal aliens.
The underlying lawsuit, Manuel de Jesus
Ortega Melendres, et. al., vs. Joseph M. Arpaio, et. al., resulted in the appointment of a federal
"Community Liaison Officer" to ensure Arpaio's cooperation with
Snow's order to uphold the "constitutional rights of the Plaintiff's
class." Melendres and four other plaintiffs claimed that the
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office had discriminated against them and all Latinos
in actions amounting to "racial profiling."
In March, Arpaio and Deputy
Sheriff Jerry Sheridan accepted responsibility for
having "violated the Court's
orders" in a brief submitted by counsel proposing that compensation be
paid to anyone harmed by their actions and that the April 21 trial be
canceled. Rather than going to trial, Arpaio's attorneys suggested that
an agreement could be reached among the community liaison officer,
court-appointed monitor Robert Warshaw, and
counsel for plaintiffs and defendants.
In a footnote on page 4 of
the brief, the defendants' attorneys supported their position by quoting Snow's February
status conference statement of "I don’t want to refer this matter to a
criminal contempt hearing if I can have adequate assurance—if I can have
adequate remedies for the victims of this case; if I can have, if I believe it
is necessary, a punitive element to the individuals who may have been culpable
of criminal contemptuous behavior such that it will not happen again."
However, Snow did not cancel the contempt
hearings, which, following four days of testimony from April 21-25, is now in
recess until June 16.
In official transcripts of
the hearings which The Post & Email has seen, Maricopa County Sheriff
Joseph Arpaio told the court during testimony on Thursday, April 23, that a
"confidential informant," Dennis Montgomery, had stated that
"someone" had carried out wiretapping and email breaches against
"judges," Arpaio and his attorneys as well as breaching the bank
accounts of more than 50,000 Maricopa County residents.
During questioning of Arpaio,
Snow suggested that the party breaching phones and email accounts was the
Department of Justice, which Arpaio did not confirm.
In 2009, NPR conducted an interview of
Aram Roston, who wrote an article about Montgomery titled "The Man Who
Conned the Pentagon." On February 19, 2011, New York Times authors
Eric Lichtblau and James Risen reported that "For
eight years, government officials turned to Dennis Montgomery, a California
computer programmer, for eye-popping technology that he said could catch
terrorists. Now, federal officials want nothing to do with him and are going to
extraordinary lengths to ensure that his dealings with Washington stay
secret."
Risen is the author of a book
entitled, "Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War" which describes Montgomery as
"a failed gambler" who "managed to fool the C.I.A. into
believing that he had devised a means for decoding Qaeda messages."
In February of this year,
Montgomery filed suit against Risen;
The New York Times; Risen's publisher, Houghton Mifflin; and other defendants,
claiming "defamation and other tortious conduct."
Snow asked Arpaio how
Montgomery was compensated for his work. "...as a confidential
informant, his fees would have to be paid, or approved, if in fact it was
before the transfer of Captain Bailey, his fees would have had to have been
approved by Captain Bailey, or any payments to him would have had to have been
approved by Captain Bailey?" Snow asked.
Arpaio responded, "I'm
not sure at the time period, Your Honor."
Referring to an article in The Phoenix New
Times, Snow then said, "Now, the
article says that you were personally conducting these investigations and
personally aware of them. Were you?" to which Arpaio replied,
"Well, on a certain issue I was."
"And what issue was
that?" Snow queried, to which Arpaio responded, "It was the
president's birth certificate."
Snow: Okay. So you were
-- Mr. Montgomery was doing research into the president's birth certificate.
Did Mr. Montgomery ever tell you -- or, well, did you ever use Mr. Montgomery
to investigate anything about the Department of Justice?
Arpaio: I don't believe
that Montgomery was involved in the birth certificate. It was other violations
that he was looking into.
Snow then asked if he or any
of his family had been investigated by Arpaio's office, to which Arpaio replied
that his counsel had hired an investigator to look into "some comments
that came to our attention."
The comments, reportedly made
by Snow's wife, indicated that Snow wanted to see that Arpaio is not
re-elected. In January, Arpaio announced that he would seek re-election to a
seventh consecutive four-year term.
In testimony on April 24,
Sheridan testified that he had oversight for investigators who worked with
Montgomery at his home in Seattle, WA over a period of time.
Snow:
How often did you report to Sheriff Arpaio about what they were doing?
Sheridan:
We got weekly updates, sometimes twice a week.
Snow:
Think he understood what they were doing?
Sheridan:
I would think so, yes.
Snow:
You heard him yesterday say that the DOJ was wiretapping me and other judges, and
that that was part of that investigation. You heard that testimony,
didn't you?
Sheridan:
Yes, sir.
Snow:
I didn't hear you say anything about that. Was that part of the
investigation?
Sheridan:
I -- it's my recollection that I don't believe you were.
In mainstream news coverage
of the testimony relating to Snow's wife, a WSFA report stated that Arpaio's
assignment of a private investigator to ascertain the veracity of the tip
submitted by a member of the community that Snow's wife had been overheard
stating that her husband wanted to see that Arpaio not be re-elected amounted
to a "secret investigation" which could result in additional
"consequences" because "Federal law prohibits trying to
intimidate or inappropriately influence a federal judge."
In an article absent proper
punctuation and grammar, station KSAZ erroneously contended
that Arpaio "even admitted his attorney had the judge's wife investigated
over comments she allegedly made."
On April 28, 2012, KPHO
erroneously reported the first Cold Case
Posse press conference as having occurred on March 1, 2011 and stated that
"Both the birth certificate and draft registration are hot-button topics
which have been discussed and dissected for several years."
Arizona Central reported that "The
admission provided the most explosive moment of the trial and Arpaio's critics
with the proof they've long sought that the sheriff engages in covert
operations that favor his personal and political agendas. Snow did not appear
surprised when Arpaio confirmed on Thursday afternoon that the Sheriff's Office
had hired a private detective to investigate comments Snow's wife allegedly
made about her husband's intentions to ensure Arpaio was not re-elected."
In a counterpoint, the
article presented Arpaio's explanation in court as "A private investigator
does not just 'investigate' but can also conduct research, and researching
whether the judge in this case is biased against the Sheriff's Office would be
important because of the level of oversight Snow seeks with his monitor."
A separate Arizona Central
article characterized the
investigation of the veracity of Snow's wife's comments as Arpaio having
"confirmed the probe" of the judge's wife. The writer reported
that Snow "did not flinch" after Arpaio provided his response.
"It's not the first time Arpaio has apparently flexed his investigative
muscle to target a political enemy," the outlet reported.
KPTV described Snow's wife's
reported comments as simply "critical" of the
sheriff. The AP reported that it queried the
U.S. Attorney and FBI as to whether or not they would "examine"
Arpaio's "investigation of Snow's wife," although during testimony,
Arpaio stressed that those making the claim about her comments were questioned,
not Snow's wife.
Fox News Radio's Alan Colmes,
who has interviewed Arpaio on his Cold Case Posse's investigation into Obama's long-form birth certificate and
Selective Service registration form, determining that they are
"computer-generated forgeries," reposted part of a report
from Your West Valley which stated of the contempt hearing:
"The case has battered Arpaio's legacy. He was once a hero to
conservatives across the country for taking on immigration but has seen his
political strength weaken with a series of negative court rulings and
lawsuits."
During testimony on Friday
under questioning from Snow, Sheridan stated that Montgomery had reported that
the Department of Justice had engaged in "wiretaps" of his phone, the
phones and email accounts of two law firms representing the MCSO in Justice's
abuse of power case against Arpaio, and Snow's email account.
Although Sheridan did not
mention the word "collusion," Snow asked, "If in fact the
sheriff thought there might have been some improper collusion between me and
the Department of Justice, can you blame him if he wanted to investigate that
further?" to which Sheridan responded, "Well, there was -- there was
really nothing to think that there was any collusion."
"Did you ever hear the
sheriff describe his work as an investigation of a conspiracy, or something of
that nature, between the Department of Justice and me?" Snow
continued. "No, sir," was the response. Snow then asked,
"Did you ever hear him describe it as an investigation of me to anyone at
the MCSO?"
Sheridan responded, in
relevant part, by detailing his instructions to investigators of Montgomery's
claims, "This is a direct order from me. You are not to investigate any
information involving Judge Snow. If any further information comes up, I want
to know immediately. Nothing ever did materialize."
Regarding Dennis Montgomery,
Snow asked, "Let me ask you, Montgomery's simply a computer consultant,
isn't he?" to which Sheridan responded, "Well, that's what he is now.
He did work for, and this had been verified, and you can google his name and
find all kinds of crazy stuff about him, but there were some pieces of
information that were verified and credible also. So like many informants that
we deal with, there's a very shady side of them and then there's also a very
credible side for them."
On Friday, Sheridan testified
that some of the information Montgomery had imparted was consistent with
"typical wiretap numbers" as confirmed by a federal FISA court judge
in Washington, DC. "We had a seated justice in Washington -- I can't
recall his name; I have it written down on my pad, Your Honor -- that is a
member of the FISA court in Washington, D.C. We had Mr. Mon -- because the
sheriff and I were concerned about the CIA wiretapping our phones. This justice
actually confirmed that these were typical wiretap numbers, and so it did give
Mr. Montgomery a little more credibility with us," Sheridan said.
Sheridan's statements about
the confirmation of the codes Montgomery identified were not reported by any
media outlets.
In 2007, Montgomery's home
was raided as a result of civil
litigation in which he had become involved with a software developer with whom
he had partnered for a time. According to a report dated March 20, 2007,
U.S. Magistrate for the District of Nevada Valerie Cooke stated that an
FBI special agent "'prepared search warrant affidavits that are riddled
with incorrect statements, edited documents, and uncorroborated conclusions,
which caused this court' to grant the warrant." Cooke concluded that
Montgomery's Fourth Amendment rights were violated as a result of the
intrusion.
In 2008, Arpaio's office came
under investigation and was sued by the Department of
Justice for "abuse of power," but the case was abruptly dropped in late August
2012. In his testimony, Sheridan stated that Montgomery had told them
that wiretapping had been done on two law firms which represented the MCSO in
the DOJ case, including Atty. Joseph Popolizio.
In regard to the DOJ probe,
WSFA reported on April 27 that
"A federal grand jury conducted a nearly three-year investigation of
Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations. The investigation was
closed in 2012 without any charges being filed." The report was
titled, "Sheriff Joe Arpaio's re-election chances called into
question."
Last year, Maricopa County
Cold Case Posse lead investigator Mike Zullo had announced that an ongoing
investigation had "turned very dark."
In recent broadcasts, Gallups, who has followed the posse's work closely over
more than two years, has said that certain "legal hurdles" are in
the process of being overcome.
On Thursday, through his
attorney, Larry
Klayman, Montgomery filed a Motion to
Intervene and a Motion to Recuse/Disqualify Judge G. Murray Snow "under 28
U.S. C. §144."
In support of his position,
Montgomery contended in the first brief that "The legal opinion of
Professor Ronald Rotunda, a renowned expert on Professional Responsibility and
Constitutional Law, is attached and incorporated herein in support of this
Court's disqualification. (Exhibit 1). As explained by Professor Rotunda, Judge
Snow now has – by his own admission – an incurable personal interest in the
case, at least in this new phase of this case as it has metastasized into
something entirely new. At this stage, Judge Snow is the sole decision-maker in
the case.
"By his own official
inquiry, statements, and questions in open court, on the transcript, Judge Snow
admits that the investigation now concerns – at least as the Judge believes –
the Judge’s wife."
Montgomery's pleadings are as
follows:
No comments:
Post a Comment