Files on Shooter misconduct released
Records provide details of allegations against ex-lawmaker
The Arizona House of Representatives released 340 pages of investigative records Friday after a legal demand by The Arizona Republic and KPNX-TV (12 News) to make public the underlying documents at the heart of the sexualmisconduct allegations involving state lawmakers.
The reversal by House Speaker J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, comes more than a month after he and his chamber dramatically expelled former Rep. Don Shooter, a once-powerful Republican from Yuma.
Those records provide new details about how Shooter’s accusers were disturbed by his behavior, including personal text messages and another lawmaker’s journal entry purportedly describing an encounter where he talked about his infatuation with her.
But the stack of records released Friday afternoon excludes many underlying documents from the House investigation, which was led by a private law firm hired as special counsel.
For example, the records don’t include any notes or transcripts documenting investigators’ interviews with about 40 witnesses.
The Republic first requested the documents in December, before the House’s investigative report examining allegations of sexual misconduct was finalized.
Mesnard had repeatedly told the newspaper he was withholding the records to protect the privacy of harassment victims who spoke to investigators on the condition that their names
be withheld.
In a March 8 letter, an attorney for The Republic and 12 News argued the records should be disclosed in the interest of transparency, and given the unprecedented expulsion of a lawmaker.
Without full disclosure, attorney David Bodney wrote, lawmakers would set “an unintended precedent that members of the chamber can be expelled based on ‘confidential’ information that will never be subject to public inspection and scrutiny.”
A House attorney responded Friday with a letter saying he would release some, but not all, of the investigative materials.
“If we comply with The
Arizona Republic’s request we run the risk of being sued by the witnesses,” Justin Riches, public records counsel for the House, wrote to Bodney.
Later, he wrote, “The speaker has decided to release only the attached materials. The speaker has determined releasing the following documents, although they are still subject to the protections of personnel records, does not jeopardize sensitive, personal information which may result in a chilling effect for future victims.”
Bodney, The Republic’s attorney, on Friday called the House’s decision to release additional records a good step. However, he said, withholding some records raises concerns.
“It’s a positive development that House counsel decided, upon further reflection, to release an additional 340 pages of public materials from this investigation for public inspection,” Bodney said. “It begs the question of how many additional materials remain concealed from public view.”
Bodney said he was surprised to see the records don’t include any notes from investigators’ interviews with roughly 40 witnesses, including those who weren’t deemed confidential.
Investigators interviewed Bodney during the probe because he witnessed an incident where Shooter made sexually and racially charged comments to Mi-Ai Parrish, the former president and publisher of The Republic and azcentral.com.
Bodney said one investigator who spoke with him took handwritten notes.
“It’s curious that none of the underlying interview witness reports were produced for public view,” he said. “Any witness interview reports, or handwritten notes of the interviews, could be released in their entirety, or at least in their redacted form, without any adverse consequences.”
“There’s still presumably plenty more that the public should be able to see,” he added.
Shooter, once a bombastic and powerful character at the statehouse, became the first state lawmaker nationally to be expelled for sexualharassment conduct in the wake of the national #MeToo movement, according to the Associated Press.
The historic Feb. 1 expulsion came after the House paid for the outside law firm to examine allegations that he acted inappropriately. The Republic and 12 News sought all the underlying documents, such as notes, audio records and photos, to fully understand the evidence used to compile the damning 82-page report against Shooter.
The records released Friday include a journal entry from state Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, a Christmas card Shooter gave her, social-media posts, text messages and official correspondence from the House of Representatives.
Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, was the first woman to publicly accuse Shooter of sexual harassment last year.
The records mostly center on claims made against Shooter. On Friday, Shooter said he continues to call for the public release of all records from the investigation.
“It’s time for the speaker to come clean and release everything to the public,” he said. “Let the public decide. They paid for it.”
He added, “Too many people are aware of what they’re hiding for them to do this much longer. Sooner or later, the truth will come out.”
Records pertaining to Shooter include text messages between him and Ugenti-Rita, an email in which a lobbyist and friend of Shooter questioned the veracity of allegations about him, bank statements and correspondence between Shooter’s attorney and the investigator. Some documents include redactions.
The records also include text messages that one of Shooter’s accusers sent telling an unknown person about his disturbing behavior.
Tara Zika, who works for a risk-management company that contracts with public entities, laid bare her feelings about an encounter with Shooter at a government conference. Some of Zika’s allegations against him were substantiated by the House investigation.
Zika texted the unknown person that Shooter was with a group of men and waved her over. He blew her a kiss, and the group started laughing.
Zika later texted, “He’s a legislator,” along with a screen shot of a photo of Shooter. “That’s the creep. From last night. Don shooter.”
The response: “Holy s--t, I know Don shooter.”
The records also revealed a publicly unknown chapter in the Shooter saga: He lobbied to get his committee chairmanship back weeks before his expulsion.
Mesnard suspended Shooter as chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee in November, following harassment accusations from multiple women.
On Jan. 4, four days before the start of the legislative session, Shooter’s attorney wrote the House investigator to request that Shooter be reinstated as chairman.
Mesnard responded on official letterhead the same day with one word: “No.” He signed off, “Sincerely, Speaker J.D. Mesnard” and scrawled his name.
Later that day, Shooter’s attorney wrote the House investigator and asked that he confer with the House “to assess whether a more thoughtful, reasoned response will be forthcoming. Speaker Mesnard is mistaken if he believes he can so glibly discard, with no explanation, Representative Shooter’s legitimate complaint of retaliation and disparate treatment.”
Mesnard didn’t respond further.
Investigators also compiled dozens of pages of records involving Ugenti-Rita, who could not be reached for comment Friday.
Those records included an entry from UgentiRita’s journal that purportedly describes an uncomfortable lunch with Shooter. The top of the journal page listed the date as June 30, 2011.
“It got awkward fast b/c Sen. Shooter wouldn’t stop telling me how attracted he was to me and how he thinks about me constantly,” she handwrote on lined paper. “I start to fidget in my seat. I tell him thank you, but really I want to tell him to stop!
“Of course, this isn’t the 1st time Sen. Shooter tells me how infatuated he is with me ... I am constantly reminding him how happily married I am — but he is not fazed. The point where it gets really wierd (sic) is when he tells me that he loves me and asks if there is an opportunity for ‘us’ to be together in the future.”
Ugenti-Rita also wrote Shooter told her the only reason one of her bills got through the Senate was because “he blew life into it ... I took this as a threat!”
Shooter was a member of the Senate at the time of the alleged incident. Ugenti-Rita has previously said she faced retaliation in the Senate after complaining about harassment to GOP leaders.
The records also reveal that Ugenti-Rita’s attorney complained that some Republican colleagues in the House tried to “intimidate and harass” her after she accused Shooter.
In December, four female Republican lawmakers sent Mesnard a letter demanding that Ugenti-Rita be removed from her position as chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee. They said all lawmakers under investigation should be suspended from leadership posts.
Shooter had accused Ugenti-Rita of having an inappropriate relationship with a legislative staff member. Investigators found no “independent, credible evidence” that Ugenti-Rita violated the House’s harassment policy.
Ugenti-Rita’s attorney complained to the House chief investigator that the four female lawmakers’ letter demanding UgentiRita be removed from her committee post could “certainly be construed as an attempt to interfere, discriminate, intimidate and harass” her. He wrote that the letter put UgentiRita “in a position where she is now perceived as something other than what she is in this situation — the victim.”
The House’s chief investigator replied that the House was “not aware of any ‘retaliation.’ ” Mesnard did not remove Ugenti-Rita from her chairwoman position.
The new records don’t shed any light on a portion of the investigation that involved that Brian Townsend, Ugenti-Rita’s fiance at the time of the investigation.