Phoenix Should Look At Its Part In Allister Adel Scandals: Vice Mayor

PHOENIX, AZ — Two Phoenix City Council members are calling on Mayor Kate Gallego to host a meeting to discuss the city's part in scandals within the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.

Vice Mayor Laura Pastor and Council Member Carlos Garcia called on the council to look at its own failures through its work in conjunction with the county attorney's office. Adel resigned, and her last day in office was March 25.

The county attorney's office faced a public backlash and ordered its own investigation after in October 2020 it charged 15 people who were protesting police brutality as members of a criminal street gang. A prosecutor with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, along with a Phoenix Police officer were found in an investigation to have colluded to present false information to a Grand Jury, contributing to the indictment of the 15 protestors for being part of a nonexistent street gang. The charges were later dropped in August 2021 after the investigation and public backlash.

Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams already received a one-day suspension and a written reprimand in connection to the gang charges, in addition to another incident. Also, as a result of an investigation into the charges, three assistant chiefs were removed from Williams' office and reassigned as commanders.

The investigation into the charges found that Phoenix police personnel, along with the county attorney's office, together decided to charge the protestors as gang members. It also found that the department's Gang Enforcement Unit was deliberately excluded from the investigation because of the likelihood that it would object to charging the protesters as gang members.

"We cannot sweep this under the rug and Adel’s resignation should point to the severity of the situation," Pastor and Garcia said in a news release. "The Phoenix City Council has a responsibility to hold a discussion on what happened with the cases of protestors who were wrongfully charged and to discuss the high-ranking city officials and representatives that have been implicated as well as what we must do next to ensure it does not happen again."

The two called on Gallego to schedule a policy meeting on the subject.

Adel's tenure in the county attorney's office has been mired in controversy. Most recently, her office failed to file charges in a timely fashion for 180 misdemeanor cases that were then dropped because of the statute of limitations, The Arizona Republic reported.

In mid-March Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich ordered the Maricopa County Attorney's Office to prepare a report on the failure to file charges in those cases.

Five prosecutors in Adel's office in February called for her resignation amid questions about her sobriety and ongoing frequent absences from the office. Adel received inpatient treatment for anxiety, alcoholism and an eating disorder for several weeks starting at the end of August last year and had since said she was continuing to work on her recovery. She's been adamant that she never conducted county business while under the influence, but some in her office, including the prosecutors who called for her resignation, have questioned that assertion.

The Board of Supervisors appointed Adel to the position of county attorney in 2019 after then-Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery was appointed to the Arizona Supreme Court.

She was then elected to the position of county attorney in the 2020 election.

Adel was hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic on March 25, the last day of her tenure, according to a report from the Arizona Republic. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office did not disclose the hospitalization to the public or share why Adel was hospitalized.