12 Aug 21st- Aug 27th, 2025 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | retaliating against anyone inside or outside of the sheriff’s office not suffi- ciently deferential to Sheriff Joe. That included recalcitrant employees, judges, county supervisors and mayors. It also included the former owners of New Times, who were arrested in 2007 after the paper exposed bogus grand jury subpoenas seeking identifying informa- tion on New Times’ online readers. Chagolla was once a much-despised member of Arpaio’s public information unit, with a well-earned reputation for puerile, bellicose behavior toward jour- nalists. In 2011, an outside investigation revealed that Hendershott and Chagolla had threatened a local reporter with arrest for refusing to cooperate on a probe of county officials. They warned her “several times” that if she did not comply, Child Protective Services would take her kid. Arpaio’s top in-house flak told investi- gators that Chagolla was “clearly under the thumb and influence of...Hendershott.” By that time, Chagolla was no longer doing PR for the sheriff, having been promoted from lieutenant to deputy chief. After Hendershott was fired, Chagolla remained with the agency. When Paul Penzone became sheriff, he busted Chagolla down to captain in command of a district that included that hotbed of crime known as Sun City. Pressed on Chagolla’s continued employment in 2018, Penzone said Chagolla had his support and had worked hard in the community, offering, tongue in cheek, that Chagolla was “deserving of the posi- tion he currently holds.” A few weeks after being sworn in this January, Sheridan promoted Chagolla to resume the rank of deputy chief as commander of the sheriff’s Patrol Resources Bureau. Chagolla now oversees several divisions, including aviation services, SWAT and court security. According to a county spokesperson, his annual salary is $207,408. Jeff Gentry, Undersheriff A stalwart Sheridan apostle, Gentry scored the plum position as Sheridan’s “undersheriff,” which is the same role as chief deputy, but perhaps without the negative connotations that resulted from Hendershott’s misdeeds in that role and later those of Sheridan himself. Gentry, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2020, was once the sergeant of the Selective Enforcement Unit — formerly known as the Threat Assessment Squad or Threat Management Unit — which was involved in many questionable capers in the Arpaio days. The unit was accused of targeting political opponents and critics of Arpaio, often at the behest of Hendershott. Hendershott would later take credit for the unit’s 2007 nighttime raids on the homes of former New Times’ owners Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, ending in wrongful arrests that spawned a lawsuit that the county paid $3.75 million to settle. Hendershott also reportedly sicced the unit on Nick Tarr, a Sheriff Joe imper- sonator who went by the name of Joe Arizona and wore a trick-or-treat style getup involving an old Department of Public Safety shirt and a pair of pink boxers. Hendershott ordered members of the squad to cite the comedian for “imper- sonating” a law enforcement officer. Additionally, Hendershott used the squad in 2004 to help smear Arpaio’s polit- ical rival at the time, former Buckeye Police Chief Dan Saban. The sheriff’s office boosted the unfounded allegation that Saban had raped his adoptive mother when he was a teen, supposedly more than 30 years prior to her decision to report it to the sheriff’s office. Saban insisted that he was the victim in the episode, but the smear did undeniable damage to his candidacy. It was the kind of character assassination the KGB perfected during the old Soviet Union — known as kompromat, at which Hendershott was a past master. The Arpaio All-Stars from p 10 Undersheriff Jeff Gentry. (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office) >> p 14
