AG office secretary: Temps saw documents

Wednesday, Oct. 6, 1999 | 11:12 a.m.

Temporary employees with no loyalty to the attorney general's office were allowed to view sensitive documents that may have contained intelligence information on top gaming regulators, a former office legal secretary has alleged.

The secretary, who has asked that her name not be made public, told the Sun on Tuesday that the temporary workers were brought in last November to organize some 40,000 documents in the Ron Harris criminal file that were to be turned over to District Court Discovery Commissioner Thomas Biggar. Harris is a former Gaming Control Board employee sent to prison for slot cheating.

Last month Biggar, who oversees the sharing of evidence in civil cases, recommended giving some of the documents in the Harris file to a former state investigator suing Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa for forcing him to resign because he wouldn't participate in a secret intelligence investigation of regulators. The investigation is said to have evolved out of the Harris probe.

District Judge James Mahan has scheduled a Nov. 3 hearing on whether to release the documents to the ex-investigator, Mike Anzalone, who has alleged Del Papa used the Harris investigation to go after one of her political enemies, former Gaming Control Board Chairman Bill Bible.

Del Papa, who has denied investigating Bible, has fought to keep the file out of the view of Bible and the public for more than two years.

But the secretary, described by Mahan as a whistleblower, said on Nov. 6 she "personally witnessed" several of the temporary employees examining documents and "making inappropriate comments" about the Harris case.

"They remained inquisitive to anyone who would answer their questions," the secretary said in a Nov. 10 memo to her supervisor.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Richard Linstrom said he didn't know whether any short-term employees were used to gather documents for the Anzalone suit.

"We occasionally employ temporary clerical staff from reputable agencies in all of our divisions, and they're bound by the same confidentiality requirements as permanent employees," Linstrom said.

The secretary, however, said the use of the temporary workers contributed to much "chaos" within the office, as staff members tried to comply with orders to turn over the massive Harris file to Biggar behind closed doors.

The secretary worked for Senior Deputy Attorney General Bridget Branigan, who is defending the office against the Anzalone lawsuit. The 34-year-old woman first stepped forward in August, when she telephoned Anzalone's Phoenix lawyer, Christine Manno, to say she had knowledge of misconduct in the handling of the Harris file.

At a closed hearing before Biggar, however, she reportedly did not disclose any wrongdoing.

The whistleblower told the Sun Tuesday she felt so intimidated by Branigan, who was at the hearing, that she was barely able to speak. Branigan, she said, branded her a liar and a disgruntled former employee.

After the secretary surfaced, Branigan asked Mahan to remove Manno from the case because of her contact with the woman, whom Branigan described as once being her "trusted confidante."

But on Monday Mahan refused to bounce Manno, saying the lawyer had acted above board in her brief dealings with the secretary, who still works in state government.

Last month, after Biggar made his recommendations to Mahan, the secretary submitted a five-page sworn affidavit to Mahan explaining the concerns about the attorney general's office that she had meant to convey to the discovery commissioner.

The secretary said Tuesday that she believed Branigan had removed documents from the Harris file that were supposed to go to Biggar and placed them in a safe in the office.

Another five boxes of "recently discovered" documents turned over to Biggar in April actually had been sitting in the attorney general's evidence room since August, the secretary said.