A state investigation into the misuse of federal funds at the Pima County Sheriff’s Department found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by any current personnel of the department, Sheriff Mark Napier said Friday.
Napier requested the probe in 2017 following a federal prosecution of then-Chief Deputy Chris Radtke, who was indicted on several felony counts of conspiracy to launder money and theft concerning programs receiving federal funds that were awarded to the sheriff’s auxiliary volunteers program.
The federal investigation, which took place before Napier became sheriff, revealed that several members of the department were involved in practices to divert RICO money intended for crime-fighting and prevention to buy personal items, fund ceremonies and purchase items for a cafe operated by a relative of Radtke. No one else was charged in the federal case.
Napier said he received the Attorney General’s report July 7 and it “does not find criminal culpability on the part of existing members of the Sheriff’s Department. Supposition to the contrary is irresponsible and not supported by this investigation or the prior federal investigation.”
While the Attorney General’s Office declined to file state charges against Radtke or anyone else, Napier said the state office documented an “elaborate scheme” by Radtke and former Chief of Staff Brad Gagnepain to hide the illegal use of RICO money.
Gagnepain committed suicide in 2016.
“Gagnepain and Radtke effectively controlled an unchecked slush fund of public money and used that money to advance their own interests at PCSD,” the AG’s report says.
The AG’s report said any possible state prosecution of Radtke would have been based on the same evidence used in the federal prosecution and would likely not result in a different outcome. The state investigation “unearthed no new facts meriting a second prosecution,” the report says, while clarifying that a state prosecution was legally permissible.
In 2017, Radtke accepted a plea agreement for three misdemeanor counts of theft of federal funds and was sentenced to one year of probation, 100 hours of community service and ordered to pay $3,000 in fines.
Napier, who was elected to office in 2016, said that after the sentencing a number of employees in the department and community members expressed concern over what they saw as a lenient sentence, leading him to request the state investigation, according to a news release from the department.
During his court case, Radtke said the diversion of RICO money for other unapproved uses had been occurring at the Sheriff’s Department for nearly 20 years.
The FBI’s investigation into the department’s use of funds began after a November 2015 story by the Arizona Daily Star about cafes inside department headquarters and the Pima County jail being run by Radtke’s niece without a contract and rent-free.
Public-records requests revealed the department spent nearly $30,000 on the two spaces, which officials initially said was paid for by RICO money but later said came out of the department’s general fund.
The AG’s report stated that most of the federal money to the auxiliary volunteers was diverted to a fund that was primarily used to pay for an annual December ball that cost about $50,000, which paid for the hall rental, dinners of top sirloin, gift bags, tuxedo rentals and dress purchases at Dillard’s.
Napier said the report does place some of the responsibility for the misuse of funds on former sheriffs Clarence Dupnik and Chris Nanos, who Napier defeated in the 2016 election. Nanos and Napier are both running for the office this year.
“Ultimately, the agency head is responsible for thoroughly reviewing and recommending approval of RICO expenditures with respect to both legality and appropriateness,” Napier said.
“This dark chapter in the history of the Sheriff’s Department is now closed,” he said.
Photos: Remembering Rep. John Lewis, 1940-2020
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FILE - In this Tuesday, May 16, 2006, file photo, Congressional Black Caucus members, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., left, and Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, center, are arrested after a news conference regarding Darfur, at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke, File)
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FILE - In this Friday, March 5, 1999, file photo, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., speaks with reporters in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Khue Bui, File)
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FILE - In this Sunday March 4, 2007, file photo, from left, Brown Chapel AME Church Pastor James Jackson, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, and Rev. Clete Kiley, hold hands and sing at the end of a church service in Selma, Ala., on the commemoration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Rob Carr, File)
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FILE - In this Feb. 23, 1965, file photo, Wilson Baker, left foreground, public safety director, warns of the dangers of night demonstrations at the start of a march in Selma, Ala. Second from right foreground, is John Lewis of the Student Non-Violent Committee. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/File)
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FILE - This Aug. 23, 1963, file photo shows John R. Lewis, National Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Committee, at the National Urban League headquarters in New York. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/File)
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FILE - In this March 17, 1965, file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., fourth from left, foreground, locks arms with his aides as he leads a march of several thousands to the courthouse in Montgomery, Ala. From left are: an unidentified woman, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, James Foreman, King, Jesse Douglas Sr., and John Lewis. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/File)
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FILE - In this March 7, 1965, file photo, a state trooper swings a billy club at John Lewis, right foreground, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. Lewis sustained a fractured skull. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/File)
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FILE - In this Thursday, May 10, 2007 file photo, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, R-Ga., in his office on Capitol Hill, in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
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FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2012, file photo, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, of Georgia, speaks to delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
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FILE - In this Friday, Dec. 6, 2019, file photo, civil rights leader U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., is extolled at an event with fellow Democrats before passing the Voting Rights Advancement Act to eliminate potential state and local voter suppression laws, at the Capitol in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
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In this June 7, 2020 photo provided by the Executive Office of District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, Mayor Bowser and John Lewis look over a section of 16th Street that's been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington. The White House is in the background. Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement whose bloody beating by Alabama state troopers in 1965 helped galvanize opposition to racial segregation, and who went on to a long and celebrated career in Congress, died. He was 80. (Khalid Naji-Allah/Executive Office of the Mayor via AP)
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In this June 7, 2020 photo provided by the Executive Office of District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, John Lewis looks over a section of 16th Street that's been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington. The Washington Monument and the White House are visible in the distance. Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement whose bloody beating by Alabama state troopers in 1965 helped galvanize opposition to racial segregation, and who went on to a long and celebrated career in Congress, died. He was 80. (Khalid Naji-Allah/Executive Office of the Mayor via AP)
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FILE - In this Tuesday night, Sept. 3, 1986, file photo, John Lewis, front left, and his wife, Lillian, holding hands, lead a march of supporters from his campaign headquarters to an Atlanta hotel for a victory party after he defeated Julian Bond in a runoff election for Georgia's 5th Congressional District seat in Atlanta. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Linda Schaeffer, File)
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FILE - In this July 2, 1963, file photo, six leaders of the nation's largest black civil rights organizations pose at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. From left, are: John Lewis, chairman Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee; Whitney Young, national director, Urban League; A. Philip Randolph, president of the Negro American Labor Council; Martin Luther King Jr., president Southern Christian Leadership Conference; James Farmer, Congress of Racial Equality director; and Roy Wilkins, executive secretary, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Harry Harris, File)
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FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2007, file photo, with the Capitol Dome in the background, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson, File)
