A Sheriff for Some (Part 1): Cochise County Sheriff's ties to Christian nationalists, purveyors of hate and conspiracy theory
Part 1: a look at Dannels' relationships with purveyors of hate, conspiracy theories-- and their use of deeply questionable sources of 'intelligence'
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels bills himself as “a sheriff for all the people.” However, records obtained by Cochise Regional News cast doubt on this claim, showing that Dannels has gone far out of his way to cozy up to Christian nationalists, far-right “patriot” groups, elections denying conspiracy theorists, and individuals with close ties to various extremist militias.
Far from being inclusive of the rights of “all the people,” this strange milieu Dannels has inserted himself into holds at its center a patchwork of ideologies that hold non-European immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, and non-Christians (particularly Muslims) in extreme contempt.
This is the first part of a four-part investigative series.
Rapacki: “these people bring nothing of value with them.”
On June 8, 2021, a document was sent to Cochise County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) command personnel bearing the alarming header:
"Medical Time Bomb -- Illegals and Refugees flowing into the United States."
The document, which professed to be an "intelligence briefing" of a "confidential" nature, for "restricted distribution," looked, at least superficially, like the kinds of intelligence "situational awareness" alerts, advisories, and briefings that have become common in the American law enforcement and counter-terrorism world since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
However, despite the pro forma resemblance to an official intelligence or law enforcement product, this "briefing" was not. Rather, the document was written by Lyle Rapacki, on the letterhead of "Sentinel Intelligence Services,” a private Arizona limited liability company owned by Rapacki.
The warnings contained therein were dire-- but, before we get into that, let's take a minute to consider the source.
Rapacki, who claims to be a “private sector intelligence, behavioral analysis and threat assessment specialist,” founded Sentinel in 2009 and claims to have been providing “select” members of the Arizona Legislature with “closed-door intelligence briefings” on border security and “threats to Arizona sovereignty” since 2010.
Rapacki often refers to himself as “Dr. Lyle,” owing to his claim that he holds a doctorate degree “specializing in the treatment of psychological disorders” from the “Clayton College of Natural Medicine.”
CRN could find no trace of a “Clayton College of Natural Medicine.” The Clayton College of Natural Health, however, was an unaccredited online correspondence college, now defunct.
Rapacki claims past membership in FBI Infragard (a public-private intelligence partnership administered by the FBI), the Association of Former Intelligence Officers Arizona chapter, the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals Arizona chapter, and various other intelligence-related organizations.
According to records of Rapacki email correspondence obtained by CRN, Rapacki is a trafficker in conspiracy theories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, satanic 'globalist' plots to eradicate American sovereignty (variously involving Bill Gates, the United Nations, George Soros, the Muslim Brotherhood, and various other “demonic” actors), and so on.
Perhaps most importantly, Rapacki believes the United States was founded as a Christian nation whose laws must be in conformity with Christian beliefs-- an ideology that fits some definitions of “Christian nationalism.”
He bills himself as an expert in Satanism and a “watchman” for the “Remnant Church,” whose duty it is to blow the “Shofar of Warning” as to the demonic forces at the gate.
Rapacki did not respond to questions from CRN, asking whether he considers himself a Christian nationalist. Nevertheless, we can quote some of Rapacki's own writing on Christian theocratic dominion over the nation:
“America is a covenant nation-- the only surviving nation on earth whose origins and determination are found in the papers and decrees of the Founding Fathers who established a country 'to the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.' A Covenant Nation is one that recognizes that God and His purposes are supreme over the nation, that the highest role a nation can play is to reflect God's righteousness in national policy, but also in domestic service.”
[Note: the “founding fathers” quote given by Rapacki is a quote from the Mayflower Compact of 1620. Many of the authors and signatories of this document were Puritans-- the people who, in 1692, gave us the Salem Witch Trials. Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States (Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Monroe, Madison) were practicing Diests, who favored human reason over theocratic/scriptural rule.]
Rapacki has not been hampered by these fringe beliefs. To the contrary, he seems to have gained considerable influence in recent years.
In 2021, at the time the “Medical Time Bomb” Sentinel Intelligence “briefing” was shared with CCSO command personnel, Rapacki had been playing a key role in the Arizona Senate's audit of the 2020 residential election results. Prior to that, Rapacki had played a key role in Arizona Legislative hearings in which Donald Trump's attorney, Rudy Guiliani, made false allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
[Note: Guiliani has since been indicted in multiple prosecutions related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election, has been disbarred, and has been subjected to civil judgement for defamation related to such claims. The Arizona Senate's audit of the 2020 election found no evidence of fraud.]
Apropos Rapacki's involvement in various attempts to undermine and challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona, it is worth noting that, according to email records obtained by CRN, Rapacki's email distribution list contains contacts for Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn. Epshteyn was recently indicted in this state, alongside former Cochise County Republican Committee chair Robert Montgomery, in relation to the Trump “fake electors” plot. Contacts for Sheriff Dannels (a Republican), a number of state and federal lawmakers (including LD-14 Representative Gail Griffin, a Republican), and former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (previously convicted of lying to the FBI in relation to undisclosed contacts with Russia) also appear in the same Rapacki email distribution lists.
Flynn is an extremely influential figure in the American far-right, and is a proponent of both the Q Anon conspiracy theory and Christian nationalism.
According to tax records, in 2021, America's Future, Inc., a private non-profit corporation chaired by Flynn, provided nearly one million dollars to Cyber Ninjas, Inc., the Florida-based private company hired by the Arizona Senate to conduct the audit of the 2020 election.
Further, Rapacki has ties to Phil Waldron and Mark Finchem. Through 2020 and 2021, Waldron worked closely with Rapacki, then-Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, Guiliani, Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, and then-Arizona State Representative Mark Finchem (among others-- all Republicans) to challenge the Arizona results of the 2020 presidential election.
Finchem co-founded the Election Fairness Institute/Pathway Research and Education (EFI) with former Arizona state representative David Stevens, in 2018. Other EFI directors include prominent elections deniers and a 'field organizer' of the John Birch Society.
Stevens (a Republican) is, and was at the time he co-founded EFI with Finchem, Cochise County Recorder.
Given the Cochise County focus of this reporting, it is worth noting that EFI incorporation records show that Finchem and Stevens retained the services of attorney Timothy La Sota as the organization's incorporator and registered agent.
La Sota would go on to represent failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and failed Arizona attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh (both Republicans) in their efforts to challenge the state's 2022 elections results.
Finchem also ran, unsuccessfully, as the Republican candidate for Arizona Secretary of State in the 2022 election. Finchem, like Lake and Hamadeh, also unsuccessfully challenged the results of the 2022 election through litigation.
In 2023, La Sota represented Finchem in an appeal stemming from a unsuccessful attempt on Finchem's part to sue a Democratic Arizona lawmaker who had sought an official inquiry into Finchem's potential involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In early 2023, longtime Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra (a Republican) resigned. Marra had been subject to harassment, largely due to her opposition to an unlawful refusal on the part of county supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby (both Republicans) to certify the 2022 election results, as well as a related attempt on the part of Judd, Crosby, and Recorder Stevens to conduct hand counts of all ballots cast. [Note: Crosby and Judd have since been indicted in relation to their refusal to certify the 2022 election results.]
Following Marra's departure, the Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with the Recorder's Office, transferring elections duties to Stevens (Judd and Crosby voting for, and the board's lone Democrat, Ann English, voting against). Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (a Democrat) then sued the Board of Supervisors and Recorder Stevens, arguing the transfer of duties of Elections Director to the Office of the Recorder was illegal.
In defense of their attempt to hand elections duties to Stevens, the county hired La Sota.
Corporate records from this period list Stevens, Finchem, La Sota, along with other prominent elections deniers, as principals of the Elections Fairness Institute.
Rapacki and Finchem's relationship, however, long predates Arizona's recent spates of elections-related mayhem.
A 2015 press release issued by the Coalition of Western States (COWS) lists Finchem as COWS “Arizona coordinator.” Rapacki was COWS “vice chairman.” The chairman of the group was militant Christian nationalist Matt Shea.
From 2014 through 2016, COWS and their members played roles in various armed standoffs with the federal government, including those involving the Bundy ranching family in Nevada and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
It was in this context-- with Rapacki seemingly at the center of, or in close proximity to, every recent far-right cause celebre-- that CCSO command personnel received Rapacki's “Medical Time Bomb” anti-immigrant 'intelligence brief' on June 8, 2021.
According to Rapacki, the document was based on a “closed-door intelligence briefing” he had provided to members of the Arizona Senate on August 17, 2016.
The briefing began:
"While the rhetoric regarding illegal crossings flowing into America and the concomitant influx of Middle Eastern 'Refugees' into targeted states rages, the intelligence contained in this Briefing Summary transcends the debates, issues of political correctness, and politics in general.”
Rapacki then delved into claims that "illegals" carrying "scurvy, measles, chicken-pox, acute explosive diarrhea with third-world bacterial agents, and unknown bacteria and parasites attempting to resist antibiotics, as well as pernicious and new forms of lice and worms" were being deliberately funneled into Republican-led states by the administration of then-President Barack Obama (a Democrat).
The document further claimed that information relating to the diseases and parasites allegedly carried by these immigrants (particularly the unaccompanied children among them) was being deliberately concealed from affected state governments by the federal government.
In essence, the document charged-- without substantiation-- that the Obama administration was using human beings (refugees seeking shelter from violence and persecution in the Middle East) as agents of biological warfare against Republican American citizens.
Rapacki continued:
"The Federal Government has now increased the speed and volume of third-world populations into the United States; interestingly, especially into politically conservative states. The calculated work of the Feds has led to Muslims by the thousands from mostly terribly underdeveloped and deteriorating Muslim countries, including those Islamic Nations hostile to the United States, now arriving. The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest has presented official figures depicting a massive spike in Green Cards for Middle Easterners; most notably, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Iran. [...] These numbers do not reflect the numbers of illegals and Middle Easterners successfully entering America from our unsecure southern Border. There are unknown numbers of third-world humanity stemming from Haiti, Central America, and South America.
"The influx of humanity that is being discarded by these third-world Muslim countries is astounding, and fearful. These people bring nothing of value with them; no skills, no education, no work ethic or even moral framework. In point of fact, the preponderant majority of these people are hardened criminals, many purposefully released from prisons, and warriors who have only known civil war and strife by opposing gangs and warlords. Their health conditions are terrifying which will demand a response to stem the epidemic." [Emphasis mine.]
Though sent to CCSO command personnel in June of 2021, the “briefing” was dated September 9, 2016 and was addressed to then-Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump, and Ben Carson. Carson, a medical doctor, had previously been a 2016 Republican presidential candidate. At the time Rapacki drafted the document, Carson was acting as an advisor to Trump's campaign.
Trump had issued a press release in December 2015 stating his intent to completely "shut down" the entry of Muslims into the United States, and rhetoric demonizing immigrants and Muslims had been central to the Trump campaign.
At the time of the document's authorship, the Syrian civil war was well into its fifth year. Syrians fleeing the violence of both Russian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), along with populations of other Middle Eastern nations facing violence from ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups, were seeking refuge in the United States, Europe, and other more stable nations.
Nativist fears of these refugees were harnessed in service of rising political tides of right-wing nationalism in Western democracies such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and the United States.
In the United States, Trump had entered the American political arena in 2011 by espousing the false “birther” conspiracy theory, which held that President Barack Hussein Obama was not born in the United States. Trump consistently played on voters' fears of immigrants from Muslim-majority nations throughout the 2016 election cycle.
According to public statements made by both Rapacki and Dannels, the two men have known each other since about 2011, and Rapacki has said that his “intel” is informed through his relationships with men like Dannels.
Deeply questionable intelligence and hate-- inside the fever dream echo chamber
Cochise Regional News obtained this Rapacki "intelligence briefing" as part of records produced by the Cochise County Sheriff's Office in response to a public records request seeking (in part) all documents and communications from, and pertaining to, Rapacki in possession of Sheriff Dannels and other CCSO command personnel.
It should be noted that many of the records of email communications delivered by CCSO in response this public records request contained incomplete email metadata fields-- particularly metadata which would divulge to whom within CCSO's command structure certain emails had been sent.
This was the case with records detailing the June 8, 2021 delivery of this Rapacki brief to CCSO command personnel; the record produced by CCSO simply stated that the brief had been sent from a sender identified as "Ron Thompson," but records contained no information as to whom within CCSO command it had been sent.
When asked to identify the CCSO email account from which the Rapacki brief had been produced, CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas stated that she could not, and that she could only specify that the email had been sent to someone (or possibly multiple someones)-- possibly Dannels, or possibly someone else-- within CCSO's command structure.
[Note: CRN provided CCSO Pubic Information Officer Capas and Dannels with a copy of Rapacki's “Medical Time Bomb” document and asked whether the Sheriff agrees with its contents. Capas and Dannels declined to comment.]
Nevertheless, records produced by CCSO show that "Ron Thompson" had sent multiple emails to Dannels, Rapacki, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, former Arizona Oath Keepers vice president and current Yavapai County Oath Keepers leader Jim Arroyo, as well as others affiliated Oath Keepers in southern Arizona, on multiple occasions.
The Oath Keepers are a far-right extremist group founded by Stewart Rhodes. Members of the group's leadership, including Rhodes, have been convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol in which supporters of outgoing President Trump attempted to stop the U.S. Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election (which Trump lost).
According to Rapacki, he is a "charter member" (founding member) of the Oath Keepers.
Both Dannels and Lamb, who is currently running for U.S. Senate, have spoken at events of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), of which Rapacki also claims "charter" membership.
CSPOA was founded by former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack, and has ties to the Oath Keepers-- in fact, Rhodes was featured as keynote speaker at a 2019 CSPOA event which also featured Dannels as a speaker.
Sheriff Dannels declined to comment on his relationships with either Rapacki or "Ron Thompson."
Though CCSO Public Information Officer Capas told CRN she does not know who Thompson is, it is clear that he may be a little more than a random wingnut who is fond of sending Dannels unsolicited anti-immigrant diatribes scribed by Rapacki.
For example, according to CCSO email records obtained by CRN, on October 14, 2020, Thompson sent Dannels, Rapacki, Lamb, Arroyo, and others an email containing "OSINT" ("open source intelligence") describing the "shit show" which would soon be wrought on the United States by the 'radical left.'
The "OSINT" cited by Thompson was an article written by right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Adams (also known as "The Health Ranger"), posted to Adams' Naturalnews.com website the day earlier.
[Full disclosure: I worked briefly as a reporter for Adams' "Newstarget.com" in 2006. At that time Adams was based in Tucson and the more extreme beliefs that now dominate his publication efforts were not evident.]
In his article, which was based largely on a Breitbart.com article, Adams claimed that "battle plans" had been posted by a "radical left-wing group" that intended to "unleash mass chaos and shoot Trump supporters in the streets" in the event Trump were to win the upcoming November 2020 presidential election.
Breitbart is a far-right publication whose co-founder and editor-in-chief, Steve Bannon, decamped in 2016 in order to serve as "chief executive officer" of the Trump presidential campaign. Bannon also served as a senior advisor to the subsequent Trump presidential administration.
The Breitbart article linked to a document entitled "Stopping the Coup: the Disruption Guide for 2020," which had apparently been publicly posted by leftist activist group, the War Resistors League.
The document's stated intent was to help activists counter election disruption which many on the political left feared would be conducted by those on the political right (such as voter intimidation by armed "poll watchers" and false declarations of victory on the part of Trump and his allies-- all of which would occur during and after the 2020 election). The manual did not call for chaos, violence, or the shooting of Trump supporters in the streets.
Nevertheless, emails obtained by CRN show that, following Thompson's "OSINT" email of October 14, 2020, on November 1 Rapacki sent out a "Sentinel Intelligence Services" briefing detailing the "captured anarchist manual" and claims of an imminent leftist attack on select targets in Washington, D.C.
In this "briefing"-- which Rapacki emblazoned with bright red text alerts, warning that its contents were "FOUO" and "LES" ["For Official Use Only" and "Law Enforcement Sensitive"]-- Rapacki claimed that he was indebted to a mysterious "intelligence specialist" with whom he had enjoyed email correspondence.
"The intelligence specialist who sent me the attached captured report wrote me a personal communication thanking me for a consistently good job, and bringing dimensions into play not heretofore considered. Included with the communication was the attached 38-page manual of the anarchists with the comment I was at liberty to forward to trusted allies [...]"
According to email records obtained by CRN, Rapacki apparently attached the War Resistors League "Stopping the Coup" manual to this “FOUO/LES” intelligence briefing, along with the October 14 email "Ron Thompson" had sent to Rapacki, Dannels, Lamb, Yavapai Oath Keepers' Arroyo, and a few other individuals associated with southern Arizona Oath Keepers and right-wing politics, in which Thompson shared Adams' October 13 Naturalnews.com article.
“Mike [Adams] isn't usually too far out there with his assessments,” Thompson wrote in the October 14 email.
Such is the source of Rapacki's “intelligence.”
In October 2022, the League of Women Voters filed a federal lawsuit against Yavapai County Oath Keepers leader Arroyo, the Yavapai County Preparedness Team (YCPT, an offshoot of Yavapai County Oath Keepers, incorporated by Arroyo in 2019), Lions for Liberty (the political arm of YCPT), and other related defendants, many of which resided in Yavapai County.
Ironically, given the claims of the Rapacki/Thompson/Adams radical left shit show “briefing” of November 2020, the League of Women Voters suit alleged that the defendants, through their practice of heavily-armed patrols of ballot drop boxes, dissemination of elections-related disinformation, and even doxxing of some voters during the 2022 elections cycle, had launched “schemes to surveil, harass, and intimidate voters at drop boxes to deter them, and those who are lawfully assisting voters, from exercising the right to vote.”
The League of Women Voters complaint alleged that the Yavapai Oath Keepers' actions constituted unlawful voter intimidation in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.
The “Ron Thompson” Rapacki/Oath Keepers/Dannels correspondence is only one example. Email records obtained by CRN show that Dannels receives a stream of far-right-conspiracy-theory-themed correspondence.
Records indicate that a regular correspondent of Dannels' is a man named Bruce Piepho. According to to email records, Piepho publishes an email newsletter, which he regularly sends to Dannels. The Piepho emails to Dannels are a veritable litany of anti-Islamic rhetoric, antisemitic tropes, anti-LGBTQ sentiment, and conspiracy theories ranging from claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, to assertions that the COVID-19 pandemic is a part of a vast “globalist” genocidal conspiracy. Piepho consistently serves up these theories couched in Biblical references and written prayer.
For example: on January 7, 2022, Piepho forwarded an email from Carl Goldberg to several recipients, including Sheriff Dannels, Legislative District 14 Representative Gail Griffin, Cochise County Recorder David Stevens, Cochise County Superior Court Clerk Amy Hunley, and then-Cochise County Republican Committee Chair (now indicted Trump “fake elector”) Montgomery.
The email was titled: “Watch out for Muslims running for public office-- and oppose them!!!” Contained in it was a list of candidates of Muslim faith who were running for various offices nationwide. Speaking to this, Piepho expressed his wish that voters in states with “Islam politicians” would “wake up.”
According to Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Goldberg is an Arizona-based anti-Islam activist and member of the Arizona chapter of the anti-Islamic hate group, Act! for America. According to published announcements, he frequently speaks at events on the perils of “Islamic ideology” and Muslim immigration to the United States.
According to SPLC, at a 2017 Act! for America rally in Phoenix, Goldberg stated that Islam is a “totalitarian and imperialist ideology” similar to communism or Nazism, and accused then-Arizona U.S. Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain of being “on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
But, Piepho's ire in communications with the Sheriff is not restricted to Muslims. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Piepho sent a number of emails to Dannels, which, in a nutshell, seemed to indicate that COVID-19 vaccines were part of a “globalist” conspiracy to harm or kill people, that a U.S. Military coup may be necessary, and that we may be living out “biblical end times.”
In support of this thesis, Piepho regularly attached several documents to his emails. These often consisted of articles written by the likes of Rapacki, Goldberg, Dr. Joseph Mercola (a leading purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation), and various far-right Christian publications.
Several other articles supplied to Dannels by Piepho were published by “Video Rebel's Blog.” This blog posits numerous conspiracy theories in which Jewish “globalist” bankers run the world. Video Rebel's Blog also asserts that the Nazi murder of six million Jews, along with a number of gypsies, homosexuals, and other 'undesirables,' never occurred (this is referred to as the “Holohoax” by Video Rebel's author).
Seemingly to avoid leaving any marginalized group out of his conspiratorial correspondence with Dannels, Piepho got in some good digs at the LGBTQ community as well.
In an email sent to Dannels in early 2021, Piepho wrote:
“We are at a pivotal crossroads. There is a crisis at the Southern Border. Congress seems to only discuss Trump impeachment. Most Americans do not go to church. The name of Jesus or referring to God is not politically correct. […] The real make or break fight is between political correctness, LGBTQ, sex transformations surgery based on orientation, satanism in the United Nations and the list goes on and on.”
This was followed by a Christian tract through which Piepho expressed his belief that LGBTQ persons should not be allowed any position of authority within the Christian church.
Neither Sheriff Dannels nor CCSO Public Information Officer Capas responded to written questions from CRN inquiring about the nature of Dannels' relationship with Piepho.
Nevertheless, it does appear as though “sheriff for all the people” Dannels and Piepho do have some form of relationship. On September 12, 2021, Dannels responded to one of Piepho's emails pertaining to the globalist COVID-19 conspiracy with the following email, evidently referring to an event involving the Sheriff and a religious group Piepho is part of:
“Good morning Bruce! I just wanted to share my appreciation to your prayer group for the invite and spiritual messages! In a time where our country needs a plethora of prayers, it truly means a lot to my office and the dedicated men and women!! Thank you again, Mark.”
The email did not elaborate further, and Dannels clearly prefers not to answer CRN's questions regarding his relationship with Piepho.
In any event, this is the far-right, factually-lacking, and hate-filled echo chamber Cochise County Sheriff Dannels appears to be immersed in, and part of.
In light of these facts, consider this:
Dannels has served as a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Advisory Council and regularly testifies on matters of border security and immigration before Congressional committees tasked with crafting federal legislation. In 2021 (the time of much of the correspondence we have discussed) Dannels was serving as president of the Arizona Sheriffs Association. He also serves as chair of the National Sheriffs Association's (NSA) Border Security Committee, and as vice president of the Western States Sheriffs Association (WSSA). Dannels also serves in a leadership role of the Southwest Border Sheriffs Coalition (SWBSC).
NSA, WSSA, and SWBSC are influential law enforcement organizations. NSA, in particular, has significant lobbying presence.
Dannels has been shown-- by my own reporting-- to use his bully pulpit to make questionable and misleading claims about border-related crime in Cochise County, including in testimony to the U.S. Congress.
[Read Part 2.]
Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— February 3, 2025.
Please Note: “A Sheriff for Some” was originally published in its entirety by CRN in May 2024. In light of recent events, this investigation is being reprinted as a series.
Support Cochise Regional News through a PayPal donation or become a paid subscriber through Substack— help keep this community resource alive.