Snared from p 15 For those convicted of minor cannabis sales, there are few ways out, even now. Bouhdida has an initial clemency hearing on August 9, but Governor Doug Ducey, who would need to sign off on any commu- tation, is notoriously unmerciful when it comes to clemency cases. Proposition 207, which largely legalized cannabis in the state, brushed over such offenses, leaving Bouhdida, and others like him, in a kind of legal purgatory when it comes to relief. New Times provided a number of ques- tions to the Tempe Police Department about the case and the department’s undercover work. “We have nothing to add,” department spokesperson Hector Encinas wrote in response. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell declined an interview request. However, MCAO spokeswoman Jennifer Liewer said, “It is important to note that the defendant had prior convictions when he was found guilty of selling marijuana and sentencing guidelines set by the legis- lature determined his sentence.” Caught in a Web The two men standing outside the 7-Eleven that day in 2015 might have looked, from a distance, like friends. Both were Black. They were dressed casually. “I probably had some long shorts, basketball shoes on, a large T-shirt with some prints on the front,” Elcock, the Tempe sergeant, later recounted at trial. “I dressed to match the clientele that I would be dealing with on the street.” Bouhdida was put at ease by Elcock’s demeanor. And he was intrigued by the pawn shop pitch. He stopped to chat with Elcock, offering to sell him his old Samsung Galaxy phone and a pair of wire- less headphones. “I’m a firm believer in people starting their own businesses and doing something positive for themselves,” Bouhdida explained in a recent phone interview, “especially if it’s someone who looks like me, who grew up similar to me.” Bouhdida grew up in South Phoenix, near 40th Street and Baseline Road. He and his older brother were raised by a single mother. It was not always an idyllic childhood. And any semblance of that was cut short when, at age 15, Bouhdida found himself caught up, for the first time, in the justice system. In a meaningful sense, Bouhdida’s story begins then, in 2009. That spring, Phoenix police were investigating a string of armed robberies in South Phoenix. They identi- fied a group of teenagers as suspects. One was Bouhdida. To prosecute the case, the county brought in April Sponsel, then a deputy county attorney and up-and-coming gang prosecutor, in her second year working on such cases. More than a decade later, Sponsel would 16 become the center of a major scandal at the county attorney’s office. In the fall of 2020, she worked with the Phoenix Police Department to bring gang charges against customer service company in Tempe. He attended parole appointments dutifully. “His probation officer seems to talk as highly of him as possible,” the judge said at Bouhdida’s 2018 sentencing hearing. When he was arrested, he had just five classes left to complete his degree. Around the time that Bouhdida met Elcock, his girlfriend learned that she was pregnant. The two had lived together for the previous five months in an apartment in east Phoenix. And sometimes, in the afternoons, Bouhdida would stop at the 7-Eleven across the street. Chris Carlson / AP / Shutterstock Tempe police Seargent Ronald Elcock. Black Lives Matter protesters, basing the case on the demonstrators’ use of the polit- ical slogan “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bastards). That, and alleged misconduct in earlier cases, cost Sponsel her job. But back in 2009, no one was scruti- nizing Sponsel’s prosecutions of young Black teens in South Phoenix. By all accounts that later emerged in court, Bouhdida did not carry out the robberies. He was never identified in a lineup. He was sitting in the back seat of a getaway car, registered to one of the other teens, as he had done on a few occasions, according to the teens’ testimony. “He claims he did not know what they were doing the first two times until they returned to the car with stolen property,” a probation officer wrote in a 2010 sentencing report. “He denies receiving any financial gain from the offenses.” It was enough, though, for Sponsel to bring multiple armed robbery and criminal gang charges against Bouhdida, taking the extra step to charge him as an adult. Scared of the sentence he could face if he took the case to trial, Bouhdida pleaded guilty to two counts of armed robbery and one count of “assisting a criminal street gang,” and found himself — at just 16 years old — facing a five-year prison sentence. Prior to Bouhdida’s sentencing hearing, a probation officer recom- mended that the kid receive a short jail sentence and probation instead of the five-year plea he had signed. “The defendant is only 16 years old, and it appears his role in the offenses is relatively minor,” the officer wrote, saying that a prison sentence would only make it more likely for him to “re-offend” later. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Steven Lynch was not moved. He gave Bouhdida the full monty. “He was a little baby when he went in there,” Bouhdida’s aunt, Erica Stewart, told New Times, from her home in Indiana. At the time, the case had felt familiar to her, she said. Bouhdida had fallen into the wrong crowd, and into a hostile court system. “They throw them in a cage like animals, and there you go, that’s your punishment,” Stewart said. “I think it was because it’s Arizona. And it’s prejudiced there. It really is.” On the day Bouhdida met Elcock, he was still savoring his freedom, after spending the better part of his teenage years being incarcerated. He was, at that time, trying to turn his life around. “I made some very poor choices when it came to my associations,” Bouhdida said, reflecting on his old case. At the time, he had been having difficul- ties with his family, he said, and “chose to seek a sense of belonging wherever I felt accepted.” Despite warnings from his mother to stay away from some of the other teens, he was drawn to them because they were older and invited him into their crowd. The Sting The Tempe Police Department’s plan behind the local pawn shop sting was simple. A team of undercover officers would open a brick-and-mortar storefront. Some cops would work behind the counter. Another three would operate as scouts for the shop, going out on the street and pros- pecting potential clientele. “The idea was to get out there,” Elcock explained at trial, “and eventually, they’ll start trafficking stolen items to you.” Outside the 7-Eleven, Elcock was passing out his card, asking people to call the shop. He and Bouhdida chatted for a bit, then exchanged numbers. That day, Bouhdida texted the cop photos of a few things he had lying around — “just old stuff I had in my apartment that I didn’t need anymore,” Bouhdida recalled. “I’m, like, legitimately trying to help this dude out.” At one point, Elcock mentioned to Bouhdida he was looking for “heaters,” a dated slang term for pistols, the sergeant later explained at trial. “I’m thinking he’s talking about an actual heater you heat the house up with or something,” Bouhdida said. “And I had one of those and I sent him a picture.” Elcock declined to buy it. He did, though, buy an old phone off of Bouhdida for $60. Most of the pair’s conversations were recorded on audio. But one pivotal interaction was not. And it was during this sale that the subject of mari- juana was raised. This is the lynchpin of the Trent Bouhdida Bouhdida’s Medical Marijuana card. Back in 2015, Bouhdida was living under the close watch of his probation officer. And, until he met Elcock, the 21-year-old was ticking all the right boxes. He worked full-time, balancing two jobs by the time of his arrest, one at a sports videography startup and another at a story, the point around which Bouhdida’s defense turned. In Bouhdida’s telling, Elcock mentioned marijuana, asking Bouhdida — who held a valid medical marijuana card at the time for anxiety and back pain — to buy him some weed at his local dispensary. Elcock, for his part, has said he didn’t remember how the subject arose. “I just don’t know exactly what it was that happened in our initial conversation with the defendant,” the officer said at trial. Though when pressed, he said that it “could have” been him that brought up marijuana. After all, Elcock was a longtime undercover narcotics detective. He specialized in buying drugs on the street, not guns or stolen phones. After that conversation, >> p 18 AUG 4TH–AUG 10TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
