Wadsack’s $8M suit claims ‘coup’ attempt by Tucson officials to violate ex-GOP senator’s civil rights

Former Arizona Sen. Justine Wadsack claims that she suffered more than $8 million in damages due to an alleged conspiracy by Tucson police to target her over politics. She cited reporting by the Tucson Sentinel in her suit, claiming TPD “leaked” video to the press and subjected her to “malicious prosecution.”

Wadsack, through her attorney, said the Sentinel’s exclusive report last July that broke the news the Republican lawmaker was being cited for criminal speeding included a “false” claim by a Tucson Police Department officer that Wadsack had said the charge was “political persecution.”

While she in essence denies saying that last year, Wadsack’s 20-page lawsuit, filed Thursday, is filled with claims that city officials improperly targeted her for prosecution because of politics.

The suit claims Wadsack was the focus of a conspiracy by multiple Tucson Police Department officers, who she says “hatched a scheme to influence an election, with their own version of an ‘October surprise'” that caused her to lose her re-election bid during the Republican primary last year.

“These actions of wrongful prosecution were deliberate and purposeful and designed to affect (sic) a coup by TPD for political reasons,” the lawsuit claims.

“Lt. Pettey, Assistant Chief Kevin Hall and Cpt. Frank Hand conspired to and did leak information about Sen. Wadsack’s traffic stop to the press and her political opponent prior to Sen. Wadsack the criminal complaint (sic). The purpose was malicious so as to destroy plaintiff’s career and cause her damage and was in conscious disregard for the rights of plaintiff,” the suit alleges. The suit also names Officer Ryder Schrage, who was a 12-year veteran of the force at the time of the incident, plus the spouses of the named TPD personnel, with 30 other unnamed “John and Jane Doe” people and “ABC” corporations.

“Negative press” about the incident “amounted to millions of dollars of earned media for Sen. Wadsack’s primary opponent, specifically, approximately $9 million in earned media,” the suit alleges, without citing any basis for that amount.

Document: Wadsack ‘conspiracy’ suit vs. Tucson police

Wadsack did not respond to the Sentinel’s request for comment on the suit on Sunday.

City Attorney Mike Rankin, contacted Sunday night, said, “I just looked at the complaint. I have no comment on this ridiculous lawsuit.”

Last year, Rankin said the city in no way bases decisions on prosecutions on anyone’s political stances.

“First of all, the officer had no idea who the driver of the Tesla going
71 in a 35 was when he pulled her over. As for the prosecution
decision, I only consider the facts and admissible evidence relating to
the conduct that is the basis for the charge(s),” he said.

Rankin recalled that the city filed charges against a Democratic lawmaker in 2012.

Wadsack claims ‘political persecution’ over Tucson criminal speeding ticket

Last July, the Sentinel broke the news that Wadsack had been pulled over in March, and would be charged with criminal speeding for driving her Tesla down Speedway at more than 70 mph.

Wadsack was pulled over on Friday, March 15, 2024 just after 10 p.m.,
after being observed “traveling at a high rate of speed” heading east on
Speedway near North Euclid Avenue by a Tucson police officer on DUI
patrol, according to a TPD report.

According to Tucson police, the LD17 state senator was clocked going more than twice the legal limit: 71 mph in a 35 mph zone.

She told the officer she was “racing home” because the battery on her car was low.

Wadsack was not cited at the time, as her immediate introduction of herself as “Senator Justine Wadsack” resulted in the officer contacting his superiors.

Much like members of Congress, members of the Arizona Legislature
cannot be arrested or sued while they are in session, under the legal
concept of “legislative immunity.” Those limits are meant to keep
authorities from arresting lawmakers to interfere with their ability to
vote, but they can be charged once a session is over. Last year, the
Legislature adjourned on June 15.

Related: Sen. Justine Wadsack claims ‘political persecution’ over Tucson criminal speeding ticket

Last June, Wadsack told TPD that she was refusing to meet to sign
the citation, authorities said. TPD moved ahead with charging
Wadsack for speeding and being unable to provide proof of insurance.

Exceeding the posted speed limit by more than 20 mph is chargeable as
a class 3 misdemeanor in Arizona, with possible punishments of up to 30
days in jail and up to a year of probation, up to a $500 fine, and
three points charged against a drivers license.

The July news story attributed to a police report by TPD Lt. Lauren Pettey that Wadsack had responded to learning in June that the department would move ahead with charges by refusing to agree to meet to sign the citation, and “demanded to speak with the chief of police and said that she was under ‘political persecution.'”

The TPD lieutenant wrote, “She also said that I was being aggressive and got upset when I called
her Mrs. Wadsack and not Senator Wadsack. She then abruptly ended the
conversation and hung up the phone,” the report said.

Last summer, Tucson city officials pointed out that “persecution” and
“prosecution” are different things, and said the “political persecution”
claim “undermines the dangerous driving behavior” witnessed by an
officer.

The Sentinel’s news report was picked up and duplicated by numerous other outlets around the state and country, with the story even being published overseas. In the wake of the news coverage, the Fraternal Order of Police pulled their endorsement of Wadsack.

Wadsack’s suit maintains that “she has never attacked police personnel for doing their jobs—a flagrant and false charge.”

After months of making claims about “lawfare” against her and saying Tucson’s Democratic Mayor Regina Romero and Police Chief Chad Kasmar were using “the power of government to prosecute their political opponents,” Wadsack learned in December that a judge had rejected the GOP lawmaker’s contention that members of the Legislature are immune from facing criminal charges.

“Public employment is not a sanctuary for crime,” City Magistrate Lisa Surhio said, ruling that giving state lawmakers protection as Wadsack’s attorney argued
would lead to “absurd results.”

“Anyone elected to this state’s House or Senate would have absolute
immunity for at least some, if not all criminal offenses,” Surhio wrote.
“In effect, members of the state Legislature would be above the law.”

Rather than go to trial, Wadsack then asked the court to allow her to take a defensive driving class and provide proof of insurance, with the charges being dismissed.

Although the case never went to trial, Wadsack’s suit alleges that Tucson officials never turned over evidence related to the radar reading of her speed that night last year. It also claims that TPD has a policy to not preserve radar gun readouts, and does not ensure the “scientific reliability” of its radar guns.

Upon information and belief, Sen. Wadsack was singled out for this type of treatment and suddenly charged with a misdemeanor criminal speeding ticket, after the session ended. This continued the improper practice that began with stopping her vehicle in the first instance and accused her of excessive speeding. It is believed that this was all part of a plan of members of the TPD to act in concert with not yet known city officials to ruin plaintiff’s good reputation because she was introducing legislation these members of TPD felt were adverse to their interests. For these improper reasons and motives, defendants sought to cause Sen. Wadsack embarrassment and emotional distress as well as destruction to her character and legislative position by charging her with the bogus traffic crime, and publicizing it, knowing that by revealing it to media outlets, adverse publicity would ensue and cause her to either drop out, or lose her primary race she otherwise would have won, thus seriously harming her future occupation as a legislator and harming her career as a real estate agent.

Off by a mile

Wadsack’s lawsuit is rife with inaccurate claims, from getting the location of the traffic stop wrong by about a mile, to descriptions of the Sentinel’s reporting that do not match what this newsroom actually published.

The lawsuit claims Wadsack was pulled over near Speedway and Park Avenue, when in fact she was stopped at the intersection of Speedway and North Wilson Avenue, between North Campbell Avenue and North Tucson Boulevard more than a mile to the east.

The lawsuit claims the Sentinel’s story breaking the news of the incident was published on July 20. It was published on the evening of July 19, after providing Wadsack with more than 24 hours to respond to questions. She did not do so.

Wadsack makes nearly a dozen claims about “leaks” in the suit, including that a police report and body-cam video were “leaked” to the press. The Sentinel’s reporting was based on records – including the written reports and video – that were released by TPD in response to a formal public records request, as the original story explained.

Despite the claims of a conspiracy to “leak” information, this reporter – who had the sole byline on the original news report – has to the best of my knowledge never met nor interacted with any of the named defendants in the case.

Although the lawsuit directly cites the Sentinel’s news report and posting of the body-cam video of the traffic stop, it claims “upon information and belief, no media outlet reported that the body cam contains more than 18 minutes of silent video.”

The original Sentinel story, which includes the entire video, provides an extensive description of the contents, including the timing of actions, and repeatedly mentions that the officer making the stop turned off the audio recording.

While the lawsuit claims three TPD officers conspired to leak information about the traffic stop to her political opponent, our story reported that Republican primary candidate Vince Leach told the Sentinel he was unaware of
Wadsack being pulled over until being asked for comment by this news
outlet the day before the report was published. Leach again said that was the case when contacted Sunday.

Wadsack’s allegations claim that “although Sen. Wadsack did not respond to the Tucson Sentinel’s inquiries, the Tucson Sentinel accused Sen. Wadsack of claiming ‘political prosecution’ based not on anything Sen. Wadsack told them, but on what Defendant Pettey wrote in her slanted report where she falsely claimed Sen. Wadsack said she was being politically prosecuted.”

The original report includes no mention of “political prosecution.”

The lawsuit claims that “the Tucson PD endorsed Senator Wadsack’s opponent in the Republican primary.” As it is a unit of government, it would be illegal for the Tucson Police Department to endorse or oppose any candidate in an election.

From Wadsack’s court filing:

The wrongful conduct of defendants, as alleged herein, was undertaken pursuant to an agreement or meeting of the minds among defendants to act in concert to violate Ms. Wadsack’s constitutional rights, silence Ms. Wadsack’s political opposition, deprive her of due process of law, treat her differently than others and deprive her of equal protection under the law, target her for prosecution on trumped up and phony charges, chill Ms. Wadsack’s political free speech, and knowingly and wrongfully interfere with her right to hold public office and pursue her chosen occupations.

Defendants did so under color of state law and in their official capacities and their acts and/or omissions as alleged herein to pursue the prosecution of Ms. Wadsack (that was later dismissed with prejudice), were undertaken maliciously, with an evil mind guiding an evil hand, and in conscious disregard for her substantial constitutional rights, pursuant to the conspiracy among defendants to deliberately violate Ms. Wadsack’s constitutional rights and/or in deliberate indifference to her constitutional rights including the right to seclusion and privacy and to not be harassed and targeted by law enforcement and charged with false accusations motivated by malice or ill will.

As a direct and proximate cause of defendants’ conspiracy. Ms. Wadsack’s constitutional rights were violated and she has been seriously damaged, and able to show over 8 million dollars in damages directly caused by defendants conduct, not inclusive of emotional distress, and psychic trauma and other general damages incurred.

State Sens. Mark Finchem and Vince Leach on the floor of the Arizona State Senate — Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Leach a ‘man who could be controlled’

The lawsuit also claims that “all of defendants’ retaliation occurred because plaintiff was investigating the Tucson police, was an outspoken critic of the Tucson city government, was a member of the legislature’s Freedom Caucus, and because she is a woman and her primary opponent was a man who TPD officials felt could be controlled better than plaintiff. Upon further information and belief, Sen. Wadsack drew the ire of the TPD and the city because of two bills she spearheaded in the Legislature. One would have changed voting from large vote centers back to precinct-level voting and the other bill would have removed Tucson’s status as a charter city.”

Leach, who had previously been a senator from LD17 before Wadsack successfully challenged him in a two years earlier, beat the incumbent in the GOP primary last July and went on to win the general election. In the primary, he led in both early votes and ballots cast on Election Day.

“I’ll let my record speak for itself on that particular issue,” he told the Sentinel when asked for comment on the lawsuit’s assertion he could easily be controlled on Sunday night.

Noting that he had not heard about the suit before being contacted by the Sentinel, he said, “talk to Regina Romero, or Chuck Huckelberry,” he said. “He’s a friend of a sort, but we did battle all the time.”

“I’ve done 1487s against them all the time,” Leach said, using shorthand for a 2016 Arizona law that allows state legislators to request an Attorney General’s Office probe of local units of government for alleged legal violations.

Sen. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson, at the State Capitol in January 2023. — Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Courting controversy

Wadsack was one of
the most vocal members of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus while in office, criticizing what she called “sexualized”
education in public schools, authoring anti-drag bills and lambasting the Arizona State Bar with accusations she refused to back up.

Leach also drafted an anti-drag bill in 2022 and, like his opponent, has railed against transgender girls playing girls sports.

Wadsack was targeted by a recall effort in 2023, but organizers
were unable to gather enough signatures to put the question to voters.

That group fell short of the required 30,981 valid signatures from Legislative District 17 voters.

Wadsack
and her backers and supporters of the recall traded online barbs as the
effort fizzled. The first-term Republican responded “Yes ma’am!!” to
one
backer who called the recall organizers “old women that smell of cat
piss and wear Birkenstocks.” Earlier, the recall campaign reacted to
another Wadsack post by saying “way to handle it with class and dignity
#JustMeanWadSuck don’t think we’re done.”

Wadsack had upset critics with various bills, including legislation
that would have targeted drag shows, established lists of banned books
for Arizona schools, expanded the mission of the Arizona School for the
Deaf of Blind to include children with other disabilities, created new
requirements for cities and towns to swiftly demolish homeless camps,
and disbanded the Bar Association because she claimed lawyers feared the
Bar would strip them of their law licenses if they were to file
COVID-related lawsuits.

None of the bills became law.

Wadsack did not respond to the Tucson Sentinel’s emailed request to discuss the recall in 2023, but on Twitter, she posted
a video clip of the 1977 film Star Wars featuring Obi-Wan Kenobi
warning Darth Vader that “if you strike me down, I shall become more
powerful than you can possibly imagine” as they engaged in a light saber
battle. “I think the failed Recallers are already regretting what
they’ve done,” Wadsack wrote.

The traffic stop

The Friday, March 15, 2024, incident involving Wadsack began when TPD Officer
Schrage was patrolling eastbound near
Euclid just after 10 p.m. when he observed the vehicle that turned out to be driven by the
state senator, he wrote. The car, a red 2015 Tesla Model S 85, was
clocked at 58 mph by his police radar, he wrote in a police report.

“The
vehicle then came to a stop at a red light at the intersection of
Speedway and Park,” the officer wrote. “As the light turned green I
observed the vehicle accelerate at a high rate of speed. My vehicle
mounted radar then read the vehicle to be traveling 71 mph in a clearly
posted 35 mph zone. I activated my code three equipment and stopped the
vehicle near Speedway and Wilson.”

The interaction between Schrage
and Wadsack was captured on video by his body camera as he approached
her car on the side of the street on North Wilson Avenue, just off
Speedway.

“Hello,” he said, as Wadsack, at the wheel of the Tesla, rolled down her window.

“Hello,” she responded.

“Do you have your drivers license, registration and insurance?” the officer asked.

“Yes, I do. My name is Sen. Justine Wadsack and I’m racing to get
home because I have four miles left on my charger before I’m about to go
down,” she said.

“OK, well, Speedway is a 35 mph zone…,” he said.

“I understand,” Wadsack interjected.

“… and you were going over 70,” the officer said.

“I was not doing 70,” she said.

“Yes, you were. I was behind you; I had my radar on,” the officer said.

“OK,” Wadsack said.

Wadsack wasn’t able to provide proof of insurance, explaining that she’d recently changed insurance companies.

“Do me a favor and hang tight in your car; I’ll be right back, OK?”
the officer said, turning to walk back to his patrol vehicle.

He then turned off the audio recording on his body cam, but continued to record video.

For more than 15 minutes, he sat in his vehicle.

According to his report, the officer contacted his sergeant.

“After contacting our legal advisor it was decided that Sen. Wadsack
was possibly under diplomatic immunity (sic),” he wrote in his report.
“The traffic charges were long formed until this could be confirmed.
They may possibly be issued at a later date.”

The TPD officer then returned to Wadsack’s car, making a motion in
front of his camera as if he meant to turn the audio recording back on.
But the remaining couple of minutes of their interaction is silent on
the video released by the department.

Where’s ‘home’?

Wadsack’s place of residence has been
repeatedly questioned, as the residence she has owned with her husband in the
Sam Hughes neighborhood lies outside the district she was elected to
represent. Arizona law requires legislators to live in their districts
at the time of their election.

Legislative District 17, which elected Wadsack in 2022, includes precincts in Pinal County’s Saddlebrooke and Pima County’s Oro
Valley and Marana, as well as Tucson’s East Side and Vail.

In 2023, Wadsack maintained that she was renting a room in a house
near South Houghton and East Valencia roads. Her voter registration
there made her eligible to run in LD 17.

Last year, Wadsack listed herself as living in an apartment near Dove Mountain, on the other side of that district.

Both locations are miles away from the Midtown property, which is now up for sale, which is
about 10 blocks away from the site at which she was pulled over last
March.

‘Racing home’

When she was pulled over, Wadsack told the officer she was “racing to get home because I have four miles left on my charger.”

That reasoning doesn’t hold up, an expert in electric-vehicle engineering told the Sentinel last summer.

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Michael Ahern, who was a
Tesla senior staff engineer for 11 years. “There’s no car that gets more
efficient as you floor it,” electric or gas, he said.

“The faster you go, the more wind resistance becomes a factor – the
square of the velocity of the wind,” said Ahern, a University of Arizona
engineering graduate who worked for the EV company in California, the
Netherlands and Tucson before retiring from Tesla.

“70 mph is definitely in the realm where wind resistance is going
up,” he said, noting that the longest range from a Tesla’s battery can
be had at speeds around 40 mph. “Going faster isn’t more efficient.”

“Unless maybe you’re trying to climb a hill with the last bit of
battery life, so you can coast down the other side, speeding isn’t going
to work,” said Ahern, who was unaware of the identity of the person in
question before the publication of this story.

The Model S owner’s manual advises that “elevated driving speed” can affect the car’s energy consumption.

A 2015 Model S 85 can accelerate to 60 mph in about 5.9 seconds. The dual-motor Model S 85D can do so in just 3.2 seconds.

‘Political persecution’

Last June 27, an officer with TPD’s
Specialized Response Division called Wadsack’s office to try to arrange a
time for her to sign a criminal speeding citation for the March
incident.

That division’s “chain-of-command was aware of this traffic stop and
subsequent pending criminal citation for Sen. Wadsack after the
legislative session adjourned,” Lt. Lauren Pettey wrote.

Wadsack returned the call about 10 minutes later, Pettey wrote, but
the lieutenant had left her body camera in her vehicle so their exchange
was not recorded.

Wadsack “immediately became defensive and argued that she was in fact
not speeding. I explained that there was probable cause to issue her a
citation for criminal speeding and that she could present her arguments
to the judge; however, she refused to meet to sign the citation and said
she would not accept it,” the TPD officer wrote.

The GOP lawmaker “also was upset that she was being cited several
months after the fact and I explained that was due to the legislative
session was ongoing at the time of the traffic stop (thus legislative
immunity to be issued a ticket on March 15th) however it did not prevent
her from receiving a ticket once the legislative session adjourned,”
the report said.

“She demanded to speak with the chief of police and said that she was
under ‘political persecution.’ She also said that I was being
aggressive and got upset when I called her Mrs. Wadsack and not Senator
Wadsack. She then abruptly ended the conversation and hung up the
phone,” the report said.

Mike Rankin,
the Tucson city attorney, told the Sentinel last July that “‘persecution’ and
‘prosecution’ are very different things. ‘Persecution’ refers to the act
of punishing or hurting someone based on their beliefs. ‘Prosecution’
refers to the act of bringing a legal action to hold someone accountable
for their violation of law.”

“Citing someone – Ms. Wadsack or anyone else – for putting other
people in danger by driving at speeds more than 20 miles per hour above
the posted speed limit within city limits is not ‘persecution.’ It is
prosecution,” he said.

A TPD spokesman told the Sentinel that “the claim of political
persecution stemming from this traffic stop undermines the dangerous
driving behavior that Officer Schrage witnessed that night.”

“Traffic safety has been a longstanding priority for Chief Kasmar and
the Tucson Police Department. With an increase in traffic fatalities,
officers are expected to address dangerous driving behavior regardless
of who is behind the wheel,” said Officer Francisco Magos.

“A core component of TPD is to treat all community members fairly and
impartially, in alignment with the principles of constitutional
policing, regardless of their status,” he said.

Mark Finchem in October 2024. — Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Legislative immunity

Arizona’s constitutional grant of
legislative immunity is similar to the one extended to members of
Congress in the U.S. Constitution, which has roots in English law from
the 1700s. It is intended to bar authorities from interfering with a
lawmaker’s ability to participate in debates and voting on laws during a
session of the Legislature.

“At the time of the traffic stop for her violations, Ms. Wadsack
immediately identified herself as a state senator, and thereby raised
the issue of ‘legislative immunity,'” Rankin said.

“While I do not believe that the constitutional provision in question
actually has the effect of giving legislators a ‘get out of jail free’
card while the Legislature is in session, it is entirely clear that it
does not apply while the Legislature is out of session. Given this, it
made sense to delay the filing of charges until such time that the claim
of ‘legislative immunity’ would be a non-issue,” he said.

Rankin said he could only recall one other instance of the city prosecuting a state lawmaker. Rep. Daniel Patterson
was charged over domestic violence allegations in 2012, but was
acquitted. His attempt to claim legislative immunity failed in court.
Patterson, a Tucson Democrat, later resigned his seat when members of
his party called for him to leave office after an ethics investigation
recommended that he be expelled.

Those findings claimed Patterson verbally abused his staff and
colleagues, threatened physical assault, likely tampered with a
witness, and sought to trade sexual favors for votes. He attempted to
sue Pima County and the city of Tucson over his arrest, but that case
was dismissed by a judge.

Rankin expanded on the city’s practices after the Sentinel’s July 2024 news report was first published, saying that the city in
no way bases decisions on prosecutions on anyone’s political stances.

“First of all, the officer had no idea who the driver of the Tesla going
71 in a 35 was when he pulled her over. As for the prosecution
decision, I only consider the facts and admissible evidence relating to
the conduct that is the basis for the charge(s),” he said in an email.

“That was the basis for charging Patterson; and the basis for charging
Wadsack. For what it’s worth, I’m thinking that those two land on
different parts of the political spectrum. And the truth is, I couldn’t
care less about their politics,” the city attorney said.

In 2018, a La Paz County lawmaker, state Rep. Paul Mosley, was pulled
over going 97 mph in a 55 mph zone. The Republican claimed legislative
immunity, and bragged about his speeding to the officer who pulled him over, saying he sometimes drives “130, 140, 120… if there’s no traffic.”

At the time, Republican leaders in the Legislature said they didn’t think legislative immunity should apply to such situations.

“Nothing short of an emergency justifies that kind of speeding, and
assertions of immunity in that situation seem outside the intent of the
constitutional provision regarding legislative immunity,” then House Speaker J.D. Mesnard said.

In 1988, Jan Brewer – a state senator who would go on to become
Arizona’s governor – was not charged after she rear-ended a vehicle on
Interstate 17, failing field sobriety tests. She told officers that she
had two Scotches before driving. Brewer later said she didn’t claim
legislative privilege herself. Officers at the scene said she was
protected from arrest because of immunity.

Last year, Leach told the Sentinel, “The law’s the law. There’s reasons we have speed limits.”

Leach, who told the Sentinel he was unaware of Wadsack being pulled
over until being asked for comment last July, pointed out the risks of
speeding through the University of Arizona area, “with students crossing
at all angles.”

Leach did acknowledge once using his status as a legislator to avoid a
ticket while he was in office, for slow-rolling a stop sign “way out in
the country, in the middle of nowhere with nobody around.”

Legislative immunity “was not put in there to protect people from
their willful actions,” he said last year. “As much as we talk about ‘no one is
above the law,’ well, you can take it from there…”

A resolution that would’ve asked voters to remove lawmaker’s immunity from traffic citations – at least partly – has stalled out in the Legislature this year.

Sen. Mark Finchem – a former Saddlebrooke lawmaker who moved to Prescott and successfully sought election there – used legislative immunity to get a January speeding ticket dismissed. He had been cited for going 48 mph in a 30 mph zone.

Another Republican Prescott lawmaker, Rep. Quang Nguyen, introduced a measure that would allow for the arrest of lawmakers for criminal traffic violations, while maintaining their ability to forestall civil traffic tickets during a legislative session. The vast majority of traffic tickets are civil violations, such as low-level speeding offenses or failure to halt at a stop sign.

“The people we serve are expected to follow traffic laws, and legislators should be no different,” Nguyen said in a news release. “If a lawmaker is caught speeding, running a red light, or committing any other traffic violation, they should face the same consequences as everyone else.”

The Prescott representative did not respond to the Sentinel’s questions about how his measure would still preserve immunity from most traffic tickets while the Legislature is in session.

The resolution has not been taken up state Senate committees. If passed by both chambers, it would have to be approved by Arizona voters during the next general election.