The Regime and the Little Guy with White Hair

The climate and culture of law enforcement officials at the time of Mark’s arrest was that of blatant corruption. A handful of men and women who defied and broke the law regularly with complete disregard for the general public. They were so arrogant and immune to their own misdeeds they conducted themselves unlawfully in broad daylight for all to see without a care in the world. So full of themselves and self assured after having lived this way for years, they felt safe and cocooned in their own corrupt world.

I’m speaking specifically about the Phoenix regime at the time of Mark’s; not the entire Phoenix Police Department, but a handful of corrupt cops and leaders: Chief of Police, Jack Harris; County Attorney, Andrew Thomas; and the little guy with white hair Baseline task team case manager, detective Alejandro Femenia, among a few others. 

Chief of Police, Jack Harris is so blatantly corrupt he knowingly provided false kidnapping statistics in order to secure millions of dollars in federal grants. Once it was discovered and made public Harris was immediately demoted from his double dipping job and then forced to resign. (When Harris retired from the Phoenix Police Department in 2007, he was rehired as Public Safety Manager, collecting a state pension on top of a city salary of nearly $200,000 a year.)

In July 2010 mine and Mark’s house was burglarized while I was out for about an hour. Four members of Phoenix police department reached out to inform certain people that the burglary was ordered by Harris, desperate for information in the case against Mark. Anything containing data was stolen – computers and a cell phone. Oh, yeah, and a small container of homemade beaded jewelry. Gold jewelry, a video camera, DVD player among other things, were untouched.

County Attorney Andrew Thomas is now in the throes of being disbarred, charged with abuse of power and corruption. Judge Charles E. Jones writes that Thomas’ ethics violations “are far-reaching and numerous. Evidence thus far adduced portrays a reckless, four-year campaign of corruption and power abuse by respondent as a public official. . .”

In 2008 five members of the Phoenix Police Department and the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association went onsite to Andrew Thomas’ office and hand delivered the extensive nearly 200-page investigative report of Baseline suspect, Terry Wayne Smith. Desperate to have Smith investigated, as previous attempts to get Alex Femenia, Mike Mieshlish, Mike Polombo and other task team officials to investigate Smith had only resulted in them covering up this report as it was exonerating evidence to Mark. Not surprising that Andrew Thomas did the same, and withheld this evidence from Mark’s attorneys. I, along with Mark’s attorneys, learned of the cover up of Smith only covertly be people who knew this information was deliberately being withheld.

Detective Alejandro Femenia, acknowledged by a witness as "the little guy with white hair",  retired from PPD in 2008, then began his new job working full time on Mark’s case (two years after Mark’s arrest!) for none other than his good buddy, Andrew Thomas. Corrupt birds of a feather flock together and this bird not only wasted tax payer’s money working on a case full time that had already gone to trial, but was paid a full salary on top of his PPD retirement. Femenia’s retirement/going away party is fondly remembered by his PPD colleagues as the night of “taking out the trash.”

Read Office Rusty Stuart’s letter to Richard Romley regarding the cover up of Terry Wayne Smith and Femenia’s utter “failure to perform (his) basic duties as a police officer and (his) attempt to hide exculpatory information in the case against Mark Goudeau.”