PHOENIX - The Arizona Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of former Maricopa County Assessor Kevin Ross, concluding Tuesday his actions, while maybe unethical, were not illegal.
In a unanimous ruling, the judges said the information about thousands of Maricopa County seniors that Ross used from his agency to solicit personal business was available to the public. The judges said Ross did nothing illegal in packaging that information for a private company to help sell reverse mortgages to those seniors.
"For Ross to seek personal profit from information publicly available (although not widely) from his own agency may raise ethical and public records issues," wrote Judge Patrick Irvine.
But he said it does not make Ross a criminal.
In voiding the conviction, the court undid the reason that Ross had to resign his elective office three years ago. But Ross would have been ousted anyway several months later after he lost the Republican primary.
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"While I'm thankful, this is totally unacceptable," Ross told Capitol Media Services. "To destroy a man's reputation and career over personal gain and politics will not stand."
Ross refused to say if he planned any civil litigation against Attorney General Terry Goddard who brought the charges against him.
Whether this is the end of the line remains to be seen.
"We are reviewing the court's decision and will consider our options for appeal," Goddard said in a prepared statement.
Ross was indicted after giving a mortgage broker a digital spreadsheet of the names and addresses of 15,000 elderly taxpayers.
The people had sought to take advantage of a 2000 voter-approved constitutional amendment that permits seniors to freeze their property tax assessments. By definition, everyone on that list had income below that set level.
According to an investigative report, the broker was going to use the list to sell reverse mortgages where older homeowners can get cash remain in their houses without monthly payments. Ross, the report says, was going to get $400 for each mortgage sold.
Ross never denied providing the records but insisted they were public, a contention with which the trial judge eventually agreed. But prosecutors convinced a jury to conclude that Ross violated conflict of interest laws by taking a list of the seniors without paying the special fee when public records are obtained for a commercial purpose.
But Irvine said anything Ross did was unrelated to his duties as county assessor -- meaning he could not be charged with having a conflict of interest.
Nor did the appellate judges accept prosecutors' arguments that Ross' use of documents from his own agency to market reverse mortgages to seniors affected his duties.
"There is no question that, while serving as assessor, Ross was seeking to advance his personal interests with information he obtained from the Assessor's Office," Irvine wrote. "Nevertheless there was no evidence that Ross neglected his duties as assessor or that he received a benefit that made it likely that he would neglect his duties."
And Irvine said prosecutors cited no law prohibiting Ross from marketing reverse mortgages.
