When Steven Seagal and his reality-TV camera crew joined members of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office SWAT team in March to raid the home of a man suspected of participating in cockfights, it had all the markings of the staged crime-fighting events Sheriff Joe Arpaio has become known for.
Seagal and his camera crew were in position to catch all the action from the raid, and the armored vehicle present for the arrest on suspicion of animal abuse struck many observers as more of a prop than a public-safety measure.
Photos from the raid with Steven Seagal
One month before sheriff's deputies arrested Llovera on cockfighting allegations, Phoenix police were investigating him in connection with an alleged kidnapping scheme involving one of his drivers and a missing $5 million drug shipment.
But it wasn't the first time this year that police busted down Jesus Sanchez Llovera's door.
Phoenix police raided Llovera's home in February after a Llovera employee, David Morales, alleged that Llovera, 42, had held him hostage for three days over a drug debt.
Morales later disappeared, and leads evaporated in the kidnapping case. But during the February raid, detectives said they had also seen evidence of potential animal crimes. Enter the Sheriff's Office, which used that information to launch its own investigation, culminating in Llovera's March arrest on 115 criminal counts related to cockfighting.
Sheriff's detectives first learned about Llovera when he told them he was also a kidnapping victim, according to a Phoenix police report.
But Llovera's attorney said his client is neither kidnapper nor victim, neither smuggler nor cockfighter. Instead, he said, he is a simple chicken farmer who became a casualty of Arpaio's media machine.
"This is overkill. I can't believe a reasonable person would think this is necessary," Robert Campos said of Arpaio's raid on Llovera's home.
Campos said Phoenix police included kidnapping allegations in the public record to make Llovera look bad.
"They've gone to great lengths in that report to try to paint my client as a criminal," Campos said. "There's no charges; there have never been any charges. Nothing has ever come of it."
Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman, said nothing ever came of the Phoenix police investigation because the alleged victim and witnesses refused to cooperate.
But police reports describe a scenario that has become increasingly familiar to investigators in the Valley - one in which witnesses, victims and suspects in kidnapping cases are all thought to be involved in a criminal enterprise.
Morales, the man who said he was a victim, claimed to police that he had worked as a driver for Llovera for a few years and that Llovera had abducted him after Morales was robbed outside Flagstaff.
"David (Morales) believes robbers stole an unknown amount of money from the truck David was driving for Jesus (Llovera), which made Jesus and his associates mad," the police report said.
According to the police report, officers later concluded that Morales had a bag with more than $70,000 that he had taken from the truck and hidden at a family member's house, where he had gone to seek shelter after the alleged kidnapping.
When police interviewed Llovera about the kidnapping, he said Morales had stayed with him for several days after the robbery - but not against Morales' will.
"Jesus also talked about how he was kidnapped and had his pinky finger cut off in reference to the same incident," according to the report.
Investigators later wrote that the kidnapping allegations all centered on an alleged drug shipment worth $5 million that was lost.
But as the weeks went on, victims and witnesses were increasingly difficult to locate, investigators wrote, and solving the alleged crimes became nearly impossible.
The sheriff's animal-cruelty investigation involving Llovera was just beginning, however. As the kidnapping probe lost steam, investigators shared information with the animal-crimes unit about the roosters Llovera was keeping on his property.
Llovera had previously pleaded guilty to being present at a cockfight in 2010 and had been placed on two years' probation, part of which prohibited him from keeping roosters.
Based on what detectives saw when they served the kidnapping warrant, sheriff's investigators obtained a search warrant for Llovera's property in March, which they served with Seagal and his camera crew in tow.
Once inside, investigators found roosters in fighting condition, drugs commonly used in cockfighting and a pair of tiny sparring gloves, according to the sheriff's report.
But Campos, Llovera's attorney, said alterations to the roosters are common among chicken farmers. And he said proving the drugs were used on Llovera's roosters would be impossible because the birds were euthanized by authorities after Llovera's arrest. The gloves, he said, were an ornament.
"It's just an outlandish claim," Campos said. "They find one pair of gloves, which is just a souvenir; it's decoration. If you're raising hundreds of chickens for cockfighting, wouldn't you think they would find a whole arsenal?"
Campos' primary concern, however, is whether Arpaio was justified in serving the warrant with SWAT officers and an actor-turned-volunteer-deputy leading the charge.
Campos' requests for footage from Seagal's TV show will be granted, Superior Court Judge Michael Jones ruled.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2011/06/26/20110626cockfighting-raid-kidnapping-arrest.html#ixzz1QY3n0akg
Seagal and his camera crew were in position to catch all the action from the raid, and the armored vehicle present for the arrest on suspicion of animal abuse struck many observers as more of a prop than a public-safety measure.
One month before sheriff's deputies arrested Llovera on cockfighting allegations, Phoenix police were investigating him in connection with an alleged kidnapping scheme involving one of his drivers and a missing $5 million drug shipment.
But it wasn't the first time this year that police busted down Jesus Sanchez Llovera's door.
Phoenix police raided Llovera's home in February after a Llovera employee, David Morales, alleged that Llovera, 42, had held him hostage for three days over a drug debt.
Morales later disappeared, and leads evaporated in the kidnapping case. But during the February raid, detectives said they had also seen evidence of potential animal crimes. Enter the Sheriff's Office, which used that information to launch its own investigation, culminating in Llovera's March arrest on 115 criminal counts related to cockfighting.
Sheriff's detectives first learned about Llovera when he told them he was also a kidnapping victim, according to a Phoenix police report.
But Llovera's attorney said his client is neither kidnapper nor victim, neither smuggler nor cockfighter. Instead, he said, he is a simple chicken farmer who became a casualty of Arpaio's media machine.
"This is overkill. I can't believe a reasonable person would think this is necessary," Robert Campos said of Arpaio's raid on Llovera's home.
Campos said Phoenix police included kidnapping allegations in the public record to make Llovera look bad.
"They've gone to great lengths in that report to try to paint my client as a criminal," Campos said. "There's no charges; there have never been any charges. Nothing has ever come of it."
Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman, said nothing ever came of the Phoenix police investigation because the alleged victim and witnesses refused to cooperate.
But police reports describe a scenario that has become increasingly familiar to investigators in the Valley - one in which witnesses, victims and suspects in kidnapping cases are all thought to be involved in a criminal enterprise.
Morales, the man who said he was a victim, claimed to police that he had worked as a driver for Llovera for a few years and that Llovera had abducted him after Morales was robbed outside Flagstaff.
"David (Morales) believes robbers stole an unknown amount of money from the truck David was driving for Jesus (Llovera), which made Jesus and his associates mad," the police report said.
According to the police report, officers later concluded that Morales had a bag with more than $70,000 that he had taken from the truck and hidden at a family member's house, where he had gone to seek shelter after the alleged kidnapping.
When police interviewed Llovera about the kidnapping, he said Morales had stayed with him for several days after the robbery - but not against Morales' will.
"Jesus also talked about how he was kidnapped and had his pinky finger cut off in reference to the same incident," according to the report.
Investigators later wrote that the kidnapping allegations all centered on an alleged drug shipment worth $5 million that was lost.
But as the weeks went on, victims and witnesses were increasingly difficult to locate, investigators wrote, and solving the alleged crimes became nearly impossible.
The sheriff's animal-cruelty investigation involving Llovera was just beginning, however. As the kidnapping probe lost steam, investigators shared information with the animal-crimes unit about the roosters Llovera was keeping on his property.
Llovera had previously pleaded guilty to being present at a cockfight in 2010 and had been placed on two years' probation, part of which prohibited him from keeping roosters.
Based on what detectives saw when they served the kidnapping warrant, sheriff's investigators obtained a search warrant for Llovera's property in March, which they served with Seagal and his camera crew in tow.
Once inside, investigators found roosters in fighting condition, drugs commonly used in cockfighting and a pair of tiny sparring gloves, according to the sheriff's report.
But Campos, Llovera's attorney, said alterations to the roosters are common among chicken farmers. And he said proving the drugs were used on Llovera's roosters would be impossible because the birds were euthanized by authorities after Llovera's arrest. The gloves, he said, were an ornament.
"It's just an outlandish claim," Campos said. "They find one pair of gloves, which is just a souvenir; it's decoration. If you're raising hundreds of chickens for cockfighting, wouldn't you think they would find a whole arsenal?"
Campos' primary concern, however, is whether Arpaio was justified in serving the warrant with SWAT officers and an actor-turned-volunteer-deputy leading the charge.
Campos' requests for footage from Seagal's TV show will be granted, Superior Court Judge Michael Jones ruled.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2011/06/26/20110626cockfighting-raid-kidnapping-arrest.html#ixzz1QY3n0akg
