Phoenix New Times Case Was Bungled, Judge Says
By AAN Staff
november 27, 2007 09:14 am
Judge Anna Baca said yesterday that special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik failed to comply with the law when he
issued four subpoenas against the paper, the
Arizona Republic reports. Wilenchik neglected to notify the court that any of the four subpoenas had been issued and failed to notify the foreman of the grand-jury about two of them. The judge assessed no sanctions, since the subpoenas have been quashed.
New Times founder and Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey,
who was arrested with Jim Larkin in the ensuing brouhaha, told reporters that the judge's conclusion validated what
New Times has been saying. "It means we are continuing to peel back the layers of a very rotten onion," he said. "As we suspected and as we've written, this was a corrupt process." The paper has hired its own attorney to conduct an investigation into how the case was handled, according to the
Republic.