Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A private investigator hired by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to handle sensitive internal investigations had previously worked for an organization designated as an anti-Muslim hate group and participated in the controversial Cyber Ninjas review of Arizona’s 2020 election, according to a newly unsealed report.
Phoenix New Times reported that the court-appointed monitor's 226-page report on the sheriff's office looked at the way AZ Truthfinder, a company founded by former Gilbert police officer Stephanie Ameiss, obtained a county contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It was discovered that the résumé Ameiss had submitted as part of the bidding process omitted important aspects of her background, such as her six years of experience as lead investigator for Understanding the Threat, an organization founded by the former FBI agent John Guandolo.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Understanding the Threat as a hate group, stating that it was an organization that promoted anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and offered training programs to law enforcement agencies. The group ceased operations in 2023.
The report from the monitor stated that Understanding the Threat had published material that attacked Muslims, Black Lives Matter activists, Democrats and others.
The report states that Ameiss did not include her participation in the Cyber Ninjas-led investigation into Maricopa County's 2020 election results on her resume. After Donald Trump had lost in the state, the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate engaged Cyber Ninjas to carry out the highly criticized review.
AZ Truthfinder was one of the three companies bidding for the contract to carry out investigations in the situation where conflicts had prevented the sheriff's Professional Standards Bureau from dealing with the cases itself, and the leadership of the sheriff's office had chosen the company less than 24 hours after having looked at the bids.
Axios states that the company has obtained approximately $270,000 from Maricopa County since June 2025. The monitor doubted if the sheriff's office had carried out a meaningful background check before giving the contract.
The report stated that either the 'vetting process' was a sham or the vetting that had in fact been carried out had shown some of the same material that we had uncovered, but they had chosen to ignore it.
The results occur while Sheriff Jerry Sheridan and Maricopa County have been attempting to put an end to the years of federal court supervision which followed a racial-profiling lawsuit brought against the sheriff's office.
Chris Hegstrom, a spokesperson for the Sheriff's department, said to Axios that the agency was going over the report and was still committed to "full and effective compliance" with the court's orders.
The monitor suggested that the circumstances relating to the contract should be referred to a possible misconduct investigation.
