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Judge tosses 51 charges in Stapley case
Judge: County not compliant with disclosure
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Monday tossed 51 of 117 criminal charges against All of the dismissed charges were misdemeanor counts of filing an incomplete and/or false financial-disclosure form.
Retired Judge Kenneth Fields dropped them because the "defendant may not be held criminally liable for violations of financial-disclosure standards never properly adopted."
Fields agreed with Charlton that the board "failed to comply with its statutory mandate and adopt standards for financial disclosure."
Mel Bowers, the special prosecutor appointed to the case by the Yavapai County Attorney's Office, called the ruling "ironic."
"One of the responsibilities of the Board of Supervisors is to enact those statutes," he said. "They didn't, and you're able to escape through that hole."
But Fields refused to throw out any felony counts against Stapley on the same grounds.
Bowers said the felonies grew out of sworn statements that may have been false, even if the documents in which they appeared turned out not to be required by law. Charlton, however, stressed the apparent contradiction in that logic, saying that the only way to find Stapley guilty is "in the board requiring supervisors to file financial-disclosure forms."
County spokesman Richard de Uriarte said the
"The board should be able to fix this problem at an upcoming meeting," de Uriarte said.
Stapley had not yet been elected to the board when the disputed votes were taken.
In November, a grand jury indicted Stapley on 118 counts - 65 felonies and 53 misdemeanors - that stemmed from forensic analysis of 14 years of Stapley's financial-disclosure forms, beginning in 1994. Most of the alleged violations concern two parcels of property and a 2003 land deal that supposedly were not reported.
Stapley was charged with multiple offenses for each omission: perjury, forgery and false swearing, all felonies; and filing an incomplete and/or false financial-disclosure form, a misdemeanor.
One of the misdemeanor counts, regarding an investment account that Bowers decided was "not worth pursuing," was dismissed in May.
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