Navajo County Recorder Timothy Jordan will likely get to stay in office even though he pleaded guilty to a felony related to a road rage incident involving a firearm.
You may remember the blip of news coverage of Jordan, who was arrested in October 2024 for pulling a gun on two 18-year-olds who he said were tailgating his truck, then lying to police, saying they pulled a gun on him.
The whole thing went down outside of a private Christian school in Show Low and was captured on surveillance footage that contradicted Jordan’s story, leading to charges of disorderly conduct with a weapon and three other misdemeanors, including lying to police.
A few days after his arrest, Jordan, a Republican, went on to defeat the incumbent Democratic recorder in the Republican-leaning county. He had campaigned on a platform of election skepticism.
Jordan was supposed to go to trial earlier this month, but he pleaded guilty on Dec. 31 to a felony count of disorderly conduct with a weapon and a misdemeanor count of misconduct involving weapons. He’ll be sentenced Feb. 13.
Normally, a felony conviction would mean the loss of the right to vote, serve as a juror, and possess a firearm. And he could have served as much as two years in prison.
Not to mention it would have meant he would be kicked out of public office.
But thanks to a 2022 law change designed for rehabilitation, Jordan will likely be able to continue on as the Navajo County recorder.
The offense he pleaded guilty to is an “undesignated Class 6 felony,” which is now treated as a hybrid felony and misdemeanor, meaning the “offense shall be treated as a misdemeanor for all purposes until such time as the court may actually enter an order designating the offense a misdemeanor or a felony.”
Under the new law, Jordan must still give up his right to possess a firearm and he still has to provide DNA. But he gets to keep his rights to vote, serve as a juror and hold public office.
An undesignated class 6 felony has long been used as an incentive for criminal defendants to stay out of trouble while on probation and to give judges a tool for leniency.
Even before the 2022 change, the law allowed a judge to deem the offense a misdemeanor at sentencing if they thought “it would be unduly harsh to sentence the defendant for a felony,” or the judge could wait until the end of a probation period to designate the crime a misdemeanor.
The problem with waiting until the end of probation to deem the offense a misdemeanor was that the defendant was still functionally convicted of a felony while on probation, said criminal defense attorney Steven Scharboneau, who advocated for the law change in 2021.
“Just to go back and say it’s a misdemeanor, that’s great but in most cases the damage would have already been done if they’ve been kicked out of their housing, they’ve lost their job, they’ve lost their professional licensing,” said Scharboneau, who is not involved in the case.
That’s what the new law was designed to fix.
Making the felony undesignated is usually negotiated. Scharboneau said that attorneys in criminal law refer to it as “earned misdemeanor language” in plea deals.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Alan Goodwin, a 2020 appointee of former Gov. Doug Ducey, can not deem the offense a misdemeanor at the time of sentencing, according to Jordan’s plea agreement.
That means Goodwin can still send Jordan to prison. More likely, the judge would put him on probation and wait until he successfully completes it before officially dropping the crime down to a misdemeanor, but the law will treat him as though he is convicted of a misdemeanor instead of a felony while he’s on probation.
Probation officers often petition the court to terminate the probation at the halfway point if the defendant stays out of trouble, and they can also ask the court to designate the offense as a misdemeanor at that time, Scharboneau said.
We reached out to Jordan, his defense attorney and the Coconino County Attorney’s Office for comment, but none of them immediately responded.
Republican Rep. Walt Blackman, who represents Show Low, where Jordan was arrested, sponsored the bill in 2021 after previous versions failed. The courts, defense attorneys, and prosecutors worked together to craft the bill.
In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2021, former Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer said that the bill was designed to “uphold the kind of the bedrock of rehabilitation” goals that lawmakers wanted to achieve, including stable housing and income.
“Our probation officers came to us as prosecutors, and said one of the things we're struggling with is our people that are on class six undesignated are struggling to qualify for housing, struggling to get jobs, and they've asked if there was a solution,” Volkmer said. “The solution is this bill.”
And Jordan isn’t the only elected official to get offered a plea agreement under the new undesignated felony law.
Cochise County Supervisor Tom Crosby – who stands accused of interfering with then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ canvass of the 2022 election and conspiring with former Cochise County Supervisor Peggy Judd on the alleged crime – rejected a plea offer of an undesignated felony.
According to a joint pretrial statement to the court, the plea offer would have allowed him to keep his state pension, the judge would have been able to designate the offense a misdemeanor at sentencing, and he would have been placed on probation.
Crosby has chosen trial, which begins Feb. 9,1 and he now risks a conviction on two felonies, meaning he could go to prison – and lose his right to hold office.
Just before midnight on Tuesday, the Phoenix City Council ended a nine-hour meeting by hitting the brakes on the Capitol Extension light rail project — known commonly as CAPEX — that we wrote about on Tuesday and voters approved in 2015.
Like a kid that gets bored of an old toy, the council has discarded CAPEX (for now) and is trying to get its hands on a new, shinier one — a light rail line going west on Indian School Road.
That decision, in the form of a 7-2 vote, will come with huge consequences.
While Valley Metro has spent $20 million and several years studying and planning for CAPEX, which was expected to be in service by 2029, the Indian School line is little more than a concept.
Light rail administrator Markus Coleman said 5% of the design for the Indian School project was done. Officials said the earliest they could realistically get the rail up and running for paying riders is 2037, if all goes seamlessly. That means there will be almost a decade delay in light rail expansion — and that’s if Phoenix’s credibility and chance at getting federal funds aren’t damaged by backing out of CAPEX. If it can’t get federal funding, it will throw a wrench in the city’s entire transportation plan.
Councilwomen Laura Pastor and Anna Hernandez voted against killing the planned extension.
Mayor Kate Gallego argued that the council should shoot down CAPEX because Republicans at the Legislature would oppose it.
However, Hernandez said she met with Republican Rep. David Livingston the day before, and that Livingston still thought one of the CAPEX routes was the “least objectionable.” He hadn’t been told about the possibility of an Indian School line and warned that the council shouldn’t try to sneak around state lawmakers.
“What he said about this idea is, ‘That would be very dangerous to try and go around the Legislature. Avoiding us and bypassing us is the worst option,’” Hernandez recounted Livingston saying. “I think we’re going to see further action by the Legislature by moving option two up.”
Livingston confirmed to us yesterday that he hadn’t been informed about an Indian School line until this week, noting coyly that the GOP lawmakers affect city policy in many ways.
“That was disappointing,” the House Appropriations Committee chair said. “They’re going around us. I think it sets a bad example and the Trump administration is going to look very negatively on them going around us.”
Hundreds of people showed up to the council meeting or called in to comment on light rail — the large majority of whom were either for CAPEX or vehemently opposed an Indian School line.
The strongest opposition came from dozens of residents and business owners whose stores are on Indian School, many of whom became emotional describing the fear they had that the Indian School construction could send them out of business.
Some people claimed that outreach conducted by the office of Councilwoman Betty Guardado — who has led the Indian School charge and whose district encompasses the potential rail line — had been misleading.
Vanessa, a woman whose family owns properties on the busy road, said she and others collected 500 signatures of people on Indian School who were opposed.
“The community did not vote for light rail on Indian School Road,” she told the council. “This route wasn’t presented to voters in any election and the LPA that was approved in 2024 moved forward without community knowledge or involvement.”
Guardado seemed to brush aside all the opposition from her own constituents, buttressing her decision by saying she was worried about people and children getting “runned over” on the busy road.
After the meeting, we asked Guardado if she was surprised to hear so much backlash from her own constituents.
“Oh my — can we just talk later? I am so tired,” she responded.
Her office has not responded to any of the questions we sent her five days ago about where the money came from for the flyers her office has been handing out that provided instructions on how to vote for an Indian School line.
“What flyers?” Guardado responded when we asked about them, appearing dumbfounded. “We didn’t put any flyers.”
A man named Miguel — who said he was her chief of staff but declined to provide his last name (it’s Medrano) — ushered her away and insisted the office’s employees would answer our questions via email.
They have not.
Zipps raids fallout: Federal officials said they arrested 35 undocumented immigrants during Monday’s raids of 15 Zipps Sports Grill locations in the Phoenix area, per ABC15's Hector Gonzales reports. Zipps executives said they haven’t been provided with “any charging documents or detailed information beyond what has been publicly released by federal authorities.” AZFamily got ahold of the first page of the warrant (but not the entire document), which declares the raid was “for the purpose of interrogation and civil administrative arrest of illegal aliens.” ICE said potential violations include “unlawful employment of undocumented workers, identity theft and document fraud.” Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Lauren Kuby, who along with Rep. Brian Garcia was among the observers who were pepper-sprayed at Zipps’ downtown Tempe location on Monday, said it was “disturbing to see our community attacked,” the Republic’s Helen Rummel reports.
Another one: The man that Border Patrol critically wounded in Arivaca on Tuesday allegedly shot at a helicopter after fleeing a traffic stop, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos and FBI officials said at a press conference Tuesday. Officials said Patrick Gary Schlegel was involved in human trafficking and had a warrant out for his arrest for escaping from federal custody in December. The Pima County Sheriff's Office is now leading a “use-of-force-investigation” into the Border Patrol agent, which the Sheriff’s Office said is standard in a case like this.
Inspectors for sale: Two former state employees stand accused of asking for a $10,000 bribe in exchange for not reporting deficiencies at an assisted living facility in Carefree, Kevin Reagan reports for 12News. The Arizona Attorney General’s Office says Pearl Padilla and Dawn Rathburn solicited the bribe when they worked for the Arizona Department of Health Services.
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File now, fix later: State lawmakers are upset with the Arizona Department of Revenue for urging Arizonans to file their taxes, even though the Legislature hasn’t figured out how to conform state tax laws to new federal tax laws, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. Republican Sen. J.D. Mesnard wants the Department of Revenue to stop sending advisories to taxpayers until those issues are sorted out. If not, roughly one-third of Arizona taxpayers might need to redo their taxes and file amended returns.
Bills on the move: If your kid makes money through YouTube videos, Republican Rep. Julie Willoughby wants to require you to put half the money into an account you can’t touch until your kid turns 18, Fischer reports. Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Joseph Chaplik is pushing legislation to make retailers accept cash for purchases of $100 or less, per Fischer. And Republican Sen. Janae Shamp’s bill to ban fluoride in public drinking water passed a Senate committee yesterday, per the Senate GOP.
Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne’s hotline to report teachers for inappropriate lessons is receiving a good amount of community participation.
But many complaints are aimed at Horne instead of teachers, including submissions calling him a “racist old fart” and a “dumb ho,” KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez reports.
Of around 675 complaints, 370 don’t seem legitimate, Sanchez found.
Some complainers wrote fan fiction, while others transcribed the “Bee Movie” script and the lyrics to “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Horne said he thinks the hotline is working. We think he’s just really into the fan fiction.
1 Crosby’s attorney, Dennis Wilenchik, asked for a continuance on Tuesday, saying he has a medical issue that will prevent him from starting trial, but that he has a backup attorney who can be ready by March 30. The judge has not ruled.
(CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misidentified Crosby’s lawyer. It’s Dennis Wilenchik, not Jack, who passed away.)