SEDONA, AZ - Law Enforcement Today (LET) recently reported on the Sedona (AZ) Police Department, which has seen a flurry of officer resignations under Chief Stephanie Foley. We spoke to the former deputy chief, a highly decorated officer who previously served with the Boca Raton [Florida] Police Department, Ryan Kwitkin, who outlined several disturbing policies Foley permits in her department.
Kwitkin attempted to address these deficiencies with Foley, who was unwilling to adopt 21st-century policing practices.
Kwitkin, Sgt. Laura Leon (retired), and Foley’s own Executive Assistant, Sherri O'Connor (resigned), ultimately filed a hostile work environment complaint against Foley with Sedona Human Resources Manager Russ Martin.
After the complaint was filed, Foley was immediately notified of the people who made the complaint against her, and ultimately, City Manager Anette Spickard made the decision to leave her in her position to directly supervise Kwitkin and O'Connor.
An external agency was engaged to investigate the allegations against Foley. Ultimately, the investigation found that many of the allegations against Foley were not substantiated, but it did not clear her of wrongdoing.
The same day that Kwitkin, Leon, and O'Connor were notified of the outcome, Kwitkin was placed on paid administrative leave so Sedona HR Manager Russ Martin could investigate allegations against him. That investigation was done at the direction of City Manager Anette Spickard.
At the conclusion of the investigation conducted by Russ Martin, Kwitkin was terminated and has since filed a lawsuit against the City of Sedona, Chief Stephanie Foley, and other city staff members.
As a follow-up to that report, LET spoke with former Sedona mayor Scott Jablow, a retired New York Port Authority police officer with 31 years of service, who was forced to resign by the city council.
Jablow had served Sedona for eleven years, eight on the city council, and three as mayor. He initially refused to resign but ultimately did under constant pressure from other council members. It was after he resigned that he spoke to Kwitkin about the issues within the police department.
Jablow said there had been numerous complaints about Foley from officers in the Sedona Police Department, but that, for some reason, Russ Martin, the HR manager, treated those complaints differently from those filed against the former finance director, who had similar complaints filed against her by her staff.
In that case, which had very similar complaints to those of Kwitkin, Leon, and O'Connor, Spickard removed the finance director from the city hall campus, and the same outside company that investigated Kwitkin, Leon, and O'Connor was hired to investigate the finance director.
At the conclusion of the investigation, the finance director resigned rather than be terminated. Immediately at the conclusion of that investigation, Spickard hired the same company to investigate Chief Foley.
“That bothered me. Treat people the same,” Jablow told us. “And Spickard didn’t, treating Foley differently.”
Jablow told Spickard, when he was still mayor, that numerous officers were willing to speak but feared retaliation. Even officers who supported Foley described a “toxic work environment,” “fear of retaliation,” “micromanaging,” “disciplining to retain,” and “retention discipline.”
Spickard refused to investigate Foley, telling Jablow that it wasn’t a “direction they were going to go in.” Jablow said the former police chief, Charles Husted, whom Foley replaced, specifically told an interviewer that she “was not ready” for the chief’s job.
He said at least ten officers had left the Sedona PD because of Foley.
In a subsequent phone call detailing issues within the department from his position as mayor, Jablow said a woman hired as a lieutenant and then ultimately demoted to Sergeant, Raquel Oliver, who had over 18 years of police experience before joining the Sedona PD, resigned because she couldn’t take Foley’s management style any longer. In fact, Jablow said, Oliver had to take FMLA for a month due to the stress.
Oliver told Jablow, after she resigned, that when she returned to work, she found the previous LET article on everyone’s computer screens.
“So they were all talking about it,” Jablow told LET.
It should be noted that after LET published our initial article, we received no negative feedback, which we typically do when we get something wrong. It appeared clear we were over the target.
Jablow told us that he and Foley filed countercomplaints against each other, which were investigated by attorney Stacy Gabriel of the Scottsdale-based law firm Gabriel & Ashworth PLLC. He said that when the results of the investigation were released, it was completely one-sided against him.
Moreover, Spickard and Foley appeared to have a personal relationship along the lines of being friends outside of work. He said that within the Gabriel report, it was mentioned that Spickard goes over Foley’s house to use her pool, regularly socializes with Foley, and she (Foley) watches Spickard's dog when she vacations in Colorado. He believes that Spickard was instructing Gabriel to reach specific conclusions and not to look into issues others raised in their statements against Foley.
He mentioned that when the investigation began going down a particular “rabbit hole,” that part of the probe was halted. This can be confirmed by audio recordings of the people interviewed for the investigation. While he wasn’t able to provide concrete proof that this was the case, the investigation report LET reviewed appeared particularly one-sided.
Jablow told LET that he believed Spickard, by ignoring high-risk issues within the police department, was condoning them and was putting the city at risk of civil liability.
In our initial piece, we focused on several high-liability issues that Foley ignored when Kwitkin raised them, including the lack of a pursuit policy, the allowance of warning shots, and the use of civilian volunteers to transport prisoners. Jablow said the department has since banned the use of warning shots.
“It took three years of her being chief” before warning shots were banned, finally heeding former DC Kwitkin’s recommendation and many letters of concern from Judicial Watch of Arizona and director Mark Spencer.
Jablow said when Kwitkin was hired from Boca Raton, an accredited police department, he was thrilled, as he was when the department hired Scott Martin for the lieutenant’s position. Martin came from Mesa, Arizona, which Jablow believes is also an accredited police department. Law Enforcement Today confirmed that the Mesa Police Department is accredited by the Arizona Law Enforcement Accreditation Board.
Jablow also addressed what he believed was a lack of solid experience before Foley was promoted to chief of police.
“The fact is, so here she is, she came through the ranks, has no diverse training. She came up very quickly, and I think you saw the documentation from the former chief Husted before her, who said she’s not ready,” Jablow said. “And they promoted her, and she’s afraid of having anybody more knowledgeable than her,” which Jablow surmised was one of the reasons for friction between Foley and Kwitkin. When Foley was promoted to Chief, the executive team from Chief Husted quickly resigned. Once Foley took the reins at SPD, she hired Kwitkin, Martin, and Oliver as her executive team. All have now left.
Jablow said he believed Foley feared having subordinates smarter than she was because she feared they would come after her job. This was ostensibly confirmed in a statement from Commander Dowell in his interview with Stacy Gabriel, but that statement was not included in the final report.
“That’s why I was surprised when she hired somebody like Ryan, because you have the…I mean, his experience, you know? Nobody…well, I shouldn’t say nobody, but most leaders, especially in a police department, don’t want people below them who are smarter than they are.
“She was afraid to be ousted,” Jablow said.
Jablow also related an incident where he was approached by the Yavapai County sheriff, who asked why Sedona wasn’t participating in a regional drug task force known as PANT (Partners Against Narcotic Trafficking). Since the sheriff is an elected official and Jablow was an elected official, he said it would be typical for one elected official to speak with another and shouldn’t have been considered unusual or problematic.
Jablow was unaware that a Sedona officer was no longer participating in PANT. He said that, in the past, Sedona officers were assigned to PANT as a full-time assignment, and the sheriff made him aware that Sedona had not had an officer on the task force for the last several years.
Jablow went to Spickard and asked if she could find out why the city wasn’t participating in the task force. Spickard said she’d “get back” to him. She then asked why Jablow had spoken to the sheriff about the task force instead of directing him to her.
He said they were in a conversation when the sheriff asked him the question about why Sedona PD is no longer sending an officer to the task force. He also told her that it is not unusual for one elected official to speak with another.
Two weeks later, she told Jablow that yes, Sedona was participating in the PANT task force.
Spickard basically told Jablow that he was not supposed to speak to anyone about police department business and that any such questions should have been directed to Foley.
“I’ve never heard of that across the country and in our communities in the Verde Valley,” Jablow said. “We all communicate. But now I’m told I can’t talk to the county sheriff by my employee, who, if so concerned that I was speaking with the sheriff, never took the time to call him herself to inquire about the issues that he shared with me. But I checked with him, and he says no one from Sedona has participated in PANT for five years. I said I’m going to investigate public records.”
Jablow obtained the time sheets for Sedona and the county for the drug task force through public records requests and found the city had indeed not been participating in the task force.
Jablow then spoke to Spickard again to clarify what she had told him, and he said, “She blew up at me,” adding that he shouldn’t have such conversations with the sheriff and that questions should be directed to her. Jablow said he was coming to her and asked her again to please check whether Sedona participates. He assured her there was no right or wrong answer and that he simply wanted to know whether they participated. She finally told Jablow that no, they did not participate in the task force, but the chief did “attend monthly meetings.” I said to Spickard that I asked about “boots on the ground,” not monthly meetings.
Spickard told Jablow that other cities were pulling out (of the task force) because they didn’t have the manpower to participate in the task force. Spickard appeared to be clearly making excuses for the misleading information Foley provided to her and passed on to Jablow.
“I said OK, but you should have told me that to begin with because that’s the right answer, but you gave me the wrong answer before.”
Jablow said that, despite Foley's claim that he tried to micromanage the police department, he always went through the city manager when he had a question. It was then that the city council put it back on Jablow and told him he “had to go.”
“They were annoyed that I asked questions about the police department,” Jablow said. “We have three members on the City Council who are engineers, it’s ok that they are always asking questions related to projects that have engineering issues and concerns. But, because I have 31 years of law enforcement experience and see a lot of questionable issues they may not understand, I’m told that my concerns, many of which waste taxpayer money, shouldn’t be looked into,” Jablow said.
Jablow continued that Foley had told Ryan Kwitkin’s wife, who was the administrative assistant for Spickard at the time, not to talk to him because he was “no good for us.” Despite that, Stacy Gabriel never took the time to contact Kwitkin’s wife to verify that comment,” Jablow said.
As a result, Jablow said he avoided Foley and directed all his questions through Spickard and the city attorney. Further seeking to avoid conflict, Jablow submitted public records requests to minimize upsetting Spickard and to learn what was really going on within the police department.
Jablow’s issues began to escalate when he inquired about FLOCK cameras with Chris Dowell, commander at Sedona PD, who was acting police chief in Cottonwood, Arizona, when that town obtained FLOCK cameras. Jablow sent an email to Dowell, who responded that he was “under the impression I can’t do that.” While at Cottonwood, Dowell provided extensive information on the technology to Jablow, making him a natural resource to consult on whether such cameras would be practical in Sedona. Jablow was accused of “going around the chief.”
Jablow said when he is told not to ask questions, “that’s all the more reason I ask more questions. I’ve always asked police questions.”
Jablow said he was singled out by the city manager and other council members for asking too many questions, while any of the other six councilors could ask questions at will.
During one of the investigations into him, Jablow said that Chris Dowell admitted he had eight applications for employment elsewhere and that he feared for his job, similar to the experience of former Deputy Chief Ryan Kwitkin. The city denied those issues, yet Dowell stated on the record that he was seeing the same issues Kwitkin had, and the city tried to bury them.
Jablow said that since Foley has been in charge of the department, about 20 officers have left, which, Jablow said, is a complete waste of taxpayer dollars. Many have refused to speak up about issues within the department because of the fear that Foley will attempt to damage their reputation.
Jablow believes the entire situation, especially about police officers being unhappy under Foley’s leadership, and putting that in writing, is a cover-up. The city’s refusal to comply with Judicial Watch's public records requests is a red flag that Sedona is trying to hide something.
On August 26, Judicial Watch submitted a public records request seeking “documents of any discussion about Arizona State Library’s retention schedule for public records, emails between city employees, and elected officials regarding Police Chief Stephanie Foley’s alleged misconduct, documents of any employee or citizen complaints of the alleged misconduct, and city employee agreements and contracts regarding performance evaluations of Foley.” That information was reported by The Verde Independent and the Camp Verde Bugle.
According to the outlets, on Oct. 8, Records Clerk David Jakim emailed City Attorney Kurt Christianson with the subject line reading, “Judicial Watch.” The entire email was redacted. Christianson responded to that email the same day, and the response was also completely redacted.
While Judicial Watch’s public records request was closed on Oct. 20, JW alleges that the city withheld four emails that fit within the confines of the request. JW sent an email to Spickard on November 5, informing her that the missing emails had been obtained from external sources. By withholding those emails from the documents released to JW, the city violated Arizona state law.
One email is correspondence between Jablow and a former officer, Kyle Nudelman. In that email, Nudelman said the Sedona Police Department “has a culture of fear and retaliation.”
“One of the claims is about an incident that happened at the SPD, where a racist slur was directed at him by a subject. Nudelman repeated the statement over the radio to his sergeant, Nathan Doffman,” The Verde Independent and Camp Verde Bugle reported.
“Doffman reported the situation as ‘the worst thing he has ever heard in 20 years of service.’ Nudelman wrote that this prevented him from applying to the Chandler Police Department until December 2026.”
Further evidence of a possible cover-up is the city's claim that no exit interviews were conducted with employees who left the police department, even though, in at least one case, the officer said he had given one.
Law Enforcement Today has submitted a public records request for information on exit interviews with employees of the Sedona Police Department. As of publication, that request remains unanswered. LET will follow up on this as more information comes forth.
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