The Pinal County Attorney’s Office has closed its review of allegations involving former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb after determining that the evidence reviewed did not establish a violation of Arizona criminal law.
Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller announced Monday that his office completed its review of allegations and materials submitted regarding Lamb and concluded that “no abuse of power or other crime occurred.” The matter is now closed.
The review followed allegations involving Lamb that were submitted to the Pinal County Board of Supervisors in 2020. According to the preliminary inquiry released by Miller’s office, Tim Gustafson delivered a packet of information to the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 29, 2020, regarding allegations against Lamb, who was then serving as Pinal County sheriff.
🚨NEWS RELEASE: Pinal County Attorney Closes Mark Lamb Matter; Preliminary Inquiry Finds No Abuse of Power or Criminal Violation pic.twitter.com/Se7O8ALnuB
— Pinal County Attorney's Office (@PCAOAZ) June 23, 2026
“Public officials are entitled to the same due process and the same scrutiny as every other citizen. Not more. Not less,” Miller said. “When allegations are presented to this office, our responsibility is to determine whether a crime occurred, not whether a narrative is politically convenient. This office does not prosecute rumors, politics, social media campaigns, or headlines. We prosecute crimes. We follow the facts, we follow the law, and we follow the evidence. In this case, the evidence does not establish that any law was broken.”
The inquiry states that in May 2026, former Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer told the media that he had conducted a cursory investigation into the Lamb matter from 2020. Miller said he directed staff to locate the investigation so he could review it, but no investigation was found.
“No investigation was found, and not a single investigator at the Pinal County Attorney’s Office, including the former Chief of Investigations, could recall that such an investigation had ever been conducted,” the preliminary inquiry states.
Chief Hank Mueller then requested the materials provided by Gustafson, or any other individual, to the Pinal County Board of Supervisors. Those materials were provided on May 29, according to the inquiry.
On June 3, an alleged victim came forward and provided more than 3 gigabytes of additional materials for review, including audio, video, documents, and social media materials. Miller said he reviewed all of the materials in preparation for the preliminary inquiry.
The Pinal County Attorney’s Office said it reviewed records, witness statements, text messages, social media posts, recorded calls, and other communications before concluding that the evidence did not establish criminal conduct.
The inquiry listed three conclusions: that there was no evidence Lamb acted in a criminal manner; that there was no evidence Volkmer performed any investigation into the matter despite what he told the Arizona Republic in May; and that there was no evidence Lamb was a victim of a crime or asked Volkmer to investigate a crime on his behalf.
“Based upon all the materials provided I find that Mark Lamb committed no acts that would be considered criminal under Arizona law,” Miller wrote. “This matter is concluded.”
Lamb served as Pinal County sheriff from 2017 through 2024 and is now running for Congress in Arizona’s 5th Congressional District.
The Maricopa County Superior Court ruled that Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller violated the law by entering an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The agreement — the 287(g) Task Force Model initiated last August — empowered Pinal County law enforcement to exercise certain federal immigration enforcement powers. This arrangement heavily relied on information-sharing to assist ICE with locating and arresting illegal aliens.
The Pinal County Board of Supervisors disapproved of the agreement. The supervisors contended that Miller needed their permission to enter into such an agreement, citing limitations within the state constitution and statute.
Outside counsel brought on by the county concurred with their view, but the Phoenix ICE Field Office said the 287(g) agreement could only be ended by either Miller or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). When Miller refused to renege on the agreement, the supervisors initiated the legal action which culminated in Friday’s ruling.
During the hearing on Friday, Superior Court Judge Michael Gordon said Miller had exceeded his authority and intruded upon Pinal County Sheriff Ross Teeple’s authority.
Miller said in response to Friday’s ruling that the decision would allow for the continued victimization of Pinal County residents at the hands of criminal illegal aliens.
“[W]e must now wait until those individuals create another victim and end up back in jail on a new charge under the Sheriff’s Jail Agreement,” stated Miller.
Miller said he is “strongly considering” an appeal.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
➡️Statement on the Lawsuit in Pinal County Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Ross Teeple v. County Attorney Brad Miller pic.twitter.com/9H7t8axLwN
— Pinal County Attorney's Office (@PCAOAZ) May 15, 2026
Board Chairman Jeffrey McClure’s response was that their lawsuit didn’t represent a rejection of immigration enforcement, but rather a rejection of Miller’s claim to authority.
“This Board has supported federal authorities and immigration enforcement for years. This lawsuit is about whether elected officials must follow Arizona law, respect the limits of their office and properly safeguard taxpayer dollars,” said McClure. “We support law enforcement partnerships that are properly authorized and fiscally sound.”
Teeple confirmed his office works and shares information with ICE on a daily basis.
The board approved a 287(g) agreement for Pinal County Sheriff’s Office regarding county jail assistance.
A judge sided with Pinal County Supervisors today and ruled against County Attorney Brad Miller, confirming that Arizona law grants the Board of Supervisors exclusive authority to approve County contracts and oversee spending. Read the full release: https://t.co/qvPD6rEi9ppic.twitter.com/2tS9sO3SYy
— Pinal County – Government (@PinalCounty) May 15, 2026
Earlier this week, Teeple and McClure claimed in a joint public letter that Miller’s ICE agreement wasted and abused taxpayer funds, and had diverted county attorney investigators from criminal prosecution support to federal immigration enforcement.
“Our position is clear: Mr. Miller has hired staff for new jobs that were never authorized, offered salaries that were never approved, and used public resources in ways that raise grave safety concerns,” stated Teeple and McClure. “[The county attorney’s] office prosecutes cases under Arizona law and represents county officials in civil matters. When those boundaries are crossed, it creates legal conflict, financial risk, and confusion that ultimately harms the public.”
Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller again refused to drop his agreement to assist the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with deportations.
Miller joined the agreement to team up with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) through a 287(g) Task Force Model last August. The county attorney said this agreement would allow his office to “stop sitting on the sidelines” as illegal immigration and its consequences victimize more Pinal County residents.
The 287(g) Program authorizes state and local law enforcement to exercise certain federal immigration enforcement powers. The number of these agreements has grown exponentially under the Trump administration.
Miller said in a Friday press release that he would not yield to the Pinal County Board of Supervisors demand that he end the agreement to assist ICE.
“While the Pinal County Attorney will always discuss a compromise, he will never compromise on prosecuting dangerous criminals,” said Miller. “[T]his agreement will enable us to assist ICE to go after known criminals acting in our communities.”
The Phoenix ICE Field Office said the agreement with Pinal County Attorney’s Office could only be suspended or terminated by either the county attorney or DHS.
DHS reported in a year-end review published last week that it secured over 1,200 agreements through the 287(g) program in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.
This latest statement from the county attorney was a response to the most recent development in the ongoing conflict between himself and the Pinal County Board of Supervisors. In a special session on Friday, the board authorized outside counsel to take civil action to void or enjoin Miller’s agreement.
The county’s outside counsel argued in a letter issued earlier this month that the agreement between the county attorney and DHS was unlawful for multiple reasons.
That legal analysis argued that Miller lacked the constitutional or statutory authority to enter into agreements on behalf of the county. That analysis claimed the agreement between the county attorney’s office and federal immigration agents was not only impractical, but lacking any existing laws to justify county attorney authority to arrest individuals.
“This is inconsistent with the traditional separation of enforcement and prosecution, potentially eviscerates prosecutorial immunity, and impairs prosecutorial discretion,” stated the analysis.
The letter prompted the supervisors to vote to void the agreement, which Miller has since stated carried no weight.
Earlier this month DHS reported that nearly three million illegal aliens left the country in 2025, a majority of which were self-deportations (over two million) and the remainder deportations (nearly 700,000).
The greater incentive to self-deport was likely due in large part to the administration’s financial incentive. Illegal aliens were paid $1,000 last year and given a flight out of the country to self-deport. DHS disclosed the cost of a single enforced deportation was over $18,000.
The administration raised the self-deport financial incentive to $2,600. With the flight home, self-deportation costs just over $5,000. The self-deport option allows illegal immigrants forgiveness of any civil fines or penalties for violating immigration law. Even with this raise, the net taxpayer savings per deportation totals over $13,000 according to DHS.
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Maricopa County has reported that more than 855,000 of its nearly 2.5 million voters cast ballots in the Aug. 2, 2022 Primary Election. Roughly 14,000 of those ballots were still in the pre-tabulation process as of Saturday, including 7,500 which were awaiting curing by voters no later than 5 p.m. on Aug. 9.
On Saturday, representatives of the political parties in Maricopa County completed a state-mandated hand count audit of four contests (including governor and U.S. senator) on 5,000 early ballots as well as ballots cast at five randomly selected voting centers.
The hand count audit for the 2022 Primary Election is complete. The hand count boards confirmed the results match the tabulation equipment! https://t.co/JX4KWmiGyu
— Maricopa County Elections Department (@MaricopaVote) August 7, 2022
With the hand count finished, there should be no problem completing the canvass of Maricopa County’s election results by the Aug. 12 statutory deadline. Canvassing is the act of officially certifying the election results, and is expected to be uneventful for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
The same cannot be said for Pinal County, which fired its Elections Director within hours of the polls closing. There is a possibility that legal action stemming from multiple problems could keep Pinal County’s board of supervisors from being able to do its canvass by the deadline.
As AZ Free News previously reported, Pinal County administers municipal elections for its 11 incorporated cities and towns. Due to “human error,” roughly 63,000 of the county’s 275,000 registered voters received incorrect early voting ballots last month.
Elections Director David Frisk accepted responsibility for the fact thousands of voters in Apache Junction, Casa Grande, Eloy, Mammoth, Maricopa, Queen Creek, and Superior received ballots without local races listed. Several thousand other voters who lived in unincorporated communities were incorrectly sent ballots which listing municipal races they were not eligible to vote in.
(Parts of Apache Junction and Queen Creek are in Maricopa County which reported no problems getting the correct ballots to its voters.)
Frisk and Pinal County officials assured the public the mistake could be resolved by not counting votes in mayor and council races if cast by non-municipal residents. The county then sent out supplemental ballots to affected municipal residents to use in additional to their original ballot which included federal, state, and legislative contests.
Yet just when county officials thought they had the early ballot snafu handled, reports began circulating the morning of Election Day that two of Pinal County’s 90+ polling stations did not open at 6 a.m. as required.
Those two locations were finally opened by 10 a.m., but by then Frisk and his staff were overwhelmed with reports that more than two dozen polling stations ran out of preprinted ballots. The ballot supply was also a responsibility which fell on Frisk, who was hired by the board of supervisors earlier this year with no experience in Arizona election laws or procedures
As Frisk was being fired, Pinal County Recorder Virginia Ross quit her elected position on Thursday and accepted an appointment as Elections Director, a responsibility she previously had as Recorder from 2013 to 2017 before a new Elections Director position was created going into the 2018 election cycle.
Pinal County can announce that David Frisk is no longer in the position of Elections Director and is no longer employed by Pinal County.
Virginia Ross is the County's new Elections Director, having resigned her role as County Recorder this morning. 1/2
— Pinal County – Government 🌵 (@PinalCounty) August 4, 2022
Ross’s shuffling of jobs created a vacancy in the elected office of County Recorder, which the county board of supervisors filled Friday by appointing Deputy County Recorder Dana Lewis to serve out Ross’ term through the end of 2024. Lewis previously worked in the Elections Department before Frisk was hired.
County officials then regrouped with their new leadership and announced plans to update elections results every night around 7:30 p.m. “including over the weekend” until all valid ballots were tabulated. And in a major announcement, the county publicly confirmed rumors of an ongoing problem in trying to process about 10,000 early ballots.
The problem also prevented a large number of voters from being able to track their ballot’s status online. But just hours after taking over their new roles, Ross and Lewis were able to fix the problem with assistance from the Pinal County IT team so those affected ballots could get tabulated.
— Pinal County – Government 🌵 (@PinalCounty) August 6, 2022
The only other reported Election Day problem came out of Cochise County, where a few dozen people claimed that when they signed in to vote they were listed as previously signing in.
The problem appears to stem from the fact the poll workers and election observers signed in during a recent training session to understand how the system worked. The voting database was not purged by the Elections Department staff before official in-person voting began.
Some voters reportedly were given provisional ballots to cast while others were allowed to vote once the error was realized.
