AZ Bar spokesman periodically leaks info about me to media to smear me - years of this abuse now

AZ Bar spokesman Rick DeBruhl

We all know there are slimy people in politics who feed information to the press about their enemies. But to have this done to you for YEARS is pretty appalling. I was targeted by the Bar and the complicit former Maricopa County Supervisors beginning in 2009 and 2010 (the supervisors are all about gone now, but their staffers who targeted me are still there - I'm trying to get a hold of their names - and will not back down on the never-ending litigation I'm embroiled in with them merely to get them to pay for the costs of the Bar trial against me and two others).

The Bar and county supervisors consistently leaked damaging information about me and my superiors, former prosecutors Andrew Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon, because we were attorneys for Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Ray Stern from Phoenix New Times and Yvonne Wingett from The Arizona Republic were all too happy to write smear pieces about us. Wingett once tweeted that I was crying during the Bar trial against me, which incensed my husband because he was sitting in the courtroom much closer to me than her and knew it was a lie. Stern wrote more than once that I was "disbarred," which is flat out libel; I was merely suspended for six months.

Phoenix New Times wrote plenty of libelous articles about me over the years in regards to this, no doubt hand-fed to the reporters by the Bar! Skeptics will ask me, if you were libeled, why didn't you sue? Oh believe me, I've looked into it. The statute of limitations in Arizona is one year. With the hell they put me through merely defending myself in the other legal proceedings, I had no more energy and certainly not the health to learn libel law and file another lawsuit, nor did I have the money to hire an attorney to do it for me; it's not something attorneys will do on a contingency fee.

So guys like Brahm Resnik, Bar spokesman Rick DeBruhl's former buddy at Channel 12, feel they can brazenly say I was disbarred without consequences. I was invited to come on Kelli Ward's (who challenged John McCain in the GOP primary) brand-new radio show last Wednesday, and tweeted about it. I believe DeBruhl trolls me online, and told Resnik to tweet something cynical about it. See our exchange below (he's since deleted the libelous tweet, but not before I took a screenshot).

 

If you need anymore proof that DeBruhl is funneling stories to reporters about me, check out this article in March by Stern. Stern brazenly admits DeBruhl fed him this story about me supporting the Bar reform bill. "Rick DeBruhl, State Bar spokesman, alerted New Times about the bill after reading our Thursday article about a failed lawsuit filed by Lisa Aubuchon and Rachel Alexander, two former acolytes of disgraced former Maricopa County Andrew Thomas who lost their law licenses." Note the continued libel - I did not "lose" my law license, it was merely suspended. 

Aubuchon faced similar abuse. DeBruhl threatened her daughter on Twitter when she was tweeting about the Bar trial, she had called him out on something he'd tweeted that was a lie. He warned her that if she wanted any career here in media she better stay out of it. She is now a successful producer in NYC and he is....

It's been over six years since I was a Maricopa County deputy county attorney, and four years since I quit practicing law, successfully transitioning into journalism, yet the Bar and its spokesperson will still not leave me alone!

If you're a lawyer reading this, you need to know what your dues are paying for. The Bar spent over $500,000 to come after us, and almost seven years later they will not let up.Why? Because some of the others and I who have been wrongly abused by the Bar are now trying to convert it into a voluntary bar association to stop the corruption. Almost half the bars in other states are voluntary. If the Bar becomes voluntary, fat cats like DeBruhl will lose his hefty salary (probably around $150,000 if you look at what the other execs are making) and maybe even his full-time position. The Arizona Bar has the second highest mandatory dues in the nation, and its excesses have been widely documented by sites like Working for a Better Bar. Destroy my reputation so I can no longer work and afford healthcare - and that's one less activist working to dismantle the Bar.

I will not be silenced; I have successfully transferred into journalism since the corrupt Bar won't end my suspension until I pay $101,500, the cost of the bar trial against not just me but my superiors too. My immediate supervisor, who had a much larger role in everything than I did, turned on all of us to save his hide, so he had all of his disciplinary costs paid for by the county supervisors, was allowed to keep his job and only received probation!

I will continue writing and exposing these abuses until the Bar is cleaned up. For more information, check out the websites below, which I am unaffiliated with.

Working for a Better Bar
Judges Gone Wild
AZ Bar Watch (disclaimer: this site is fairly offensive)