7/24/2019 RICO - Babeu Letter to the Editor

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Letter to the EditorBy Sheriff Paul Babeu

Over the past few months, you may have seen in the news that the ACLU is suing the State of Arizona including

the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office regarding the use of RICO funds.

 Now yesterday, the Goldwater Institute submitted a public records request to our office and put out a News

Release, “asking for information explaining how the seized funds are used, the groups these funds are given to,

and what the County receives in return for the funds.” 

Much of the criticism over our use of the RICO funds have been donations we have made to Pinal County youth

 programs, organizations that help disabled veterans, shelters that assist domestic violence victims and

organizations that help prevent teen suicides.

The “Goldwater Institute”  said in their News Release, they want to know what we get back from thesedonations…

The answer should be obvious, it is a safer community for our residents to live and raise their families. Pinal

County is rural and we don’t have the same funding sources as many urban municipalities. These programs would

not exist or would be extremely limited in the services they provide to those in need if they did not receive our

financial assistance.

The Goldwater Institute says they want to ensure “taxpayer money isn’t being misused for personal gain or in

violation of the Arizona constitution.”  The RICO funding is not “taxpayer” money but rather seized criminal

money much of which comes from the Mexican Drug Cartels. The Department of Justice and Arizona Revised

Statute 13-2314.01 have made it abundantly clear that “supplanting” of funds for normal government expenses

is not allowed and in fact is illegal.

The RICO funds our office receives are approved by the County Attorney’s Office and a Superior Court Judge.

The Department of Justice has stated that up to $25,000 of Federal RICO funds can be used to “support of

community based programs.”  Examples they provide are drug treatment facility, job skills program, or a youth

 program with drug and crime prevention education. The State RICO statutes says that “at least ten percent of the

monies in the fund shall be provided to private, nonprofit community based organizations and gang prevention

and intervention programs.”

Over the past seven years, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office has donated approximately 1.5 million dollars of

seized criminal money and given it to support youth programs like the Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, High School

Graduation Night Lock in Events, Youth Sports, victim assistance programs and drug rehabilitation programs

such as the Home of Hope throughout our County.

The primary job of law enforcement is to protect our citizens. We are doing just that by using criminal money we

have seized from drug dealers and other criminals and reinvesting the money into programs to better the quality

of life in Pinal County. As long as the bad guys keep trying to make a living through committing crimes, we will

continue to provide this type of funding to organizations that restore victims and help keep our youth free from

drugs, criminal activity and gangs.