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PHOENIX — Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas dropped a grand jury investigation involving a Phoenix newsweekly Friday, saying his hand-picked special prosecutor apparently went overboard — including having the paper's top two executives arrested.

Thomas said prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik made "serious missteps" and "badly mishandled" the inquiry into New Times' publishing the home address of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on its Web site. He said that specifically includes a grand jury subpoena demanding the publication turn over the names of anyone who went to the paper's Web site in the last nearly four years.

Thomas sidestepped questions about the propriety of Wilenchik's order to sheriff's deputies to arrest Mike Lacey, executive editor of Village Voice Media, the paper's parent company, and Jim Larkin, the company's chairman and chief executive. The pair, who founded the Phoenix newsweekly in 1970, were charged with violating state laws that prohibit disclosure of matters before grand juries after writing about the subpoena in Thursday's edition.

But the county attorney, who insisted Friday that he knew nothing about the grand jury subpoena or the subsequent arrests until late Thursday, admitted his office normally doesn't have people picked up and booked for such misdemeanors. And he said the charges will be dropped.

Thomas, however, isn't apologizing for starting the investigation of New Times, saying the paper's action "was a reckless and dangerous thing to do for a man who is routinely threatened by criminals across the world." In fact, he said the reverse is true.

"They owe an apology for the sheriff for endangering him," he said. And he said the paper should apologize for breaking grand jury secrecy laws.

Lacey, who couldn't be reached for comment, is quoted in his paper's Web site as saying he was trying "to make a modest stand for our readers, our reporters and the Constitution."

Lacey, who said he was placed in handcuffs when arrested and held in custody for seven hours before being released early Friday, welcomed Thomas' decision to drop the case, according to The Associated Press.

"It certainly took some courage for him to do that," Lacey said. "It is great news for the First Amendment and the Constitution and our readers."

Lacey and Larkin had called the subpoena a "breathtaking abuse of the United States Constitution."

The investigation stems from a 2004 New Times article looking at the various pieces of property owned by Arpaio. That article listed the sheriff's home address.

That is not illegal.

But that article also went onto the newspaper's Web site. And state law makes it a felony to publish a peace officer's personal information on the Internet if that information "poses an imminent and serious threat" to the safety of that person or family, and that threat is "reasonably apparent" to the person publishing the info.

Arpaio filed a complaint that led to the investigation, the grand jury inquiry and the subpoena.

Thomas said he first asked the Pinal County Attorney's Office to handle the investigation "because the New Times has not been, let's say, a fan of mine." When that went nowhere he hired Wilenchik, who previously had employed Thomas in private practice, as a special prosecutor.

"It has become clear to me that the investigation has gone in a direction that I would not have authorized," Thomas said Friday. "It was an error in my part to allow the matter to proceed to that point without basically having personnel in place to ensure it wouldn't go off track."

He said the request for e-mail addresses of New Times Web site readers "does offend me as an American and as somebody who cares deeply about the First Amendment."

That subpoena specifically demanded information about the people who have visited the New Times Web site, ranging from the domain names and Internet Protocol addresses of everyone who had accessed the site since Jan. 1, 2004, but even information obtained about which Web site the viewers had visited immediately before.

The county attorney laughed at a question of why, as the elected official who hired Wilenchik, he should be allowed to remain in office.

"Crimes were committed here. The sheriff was in danger," Thomas said. "It was a completely legitimate investigation."

Arpaio spokesman Paul Chagolla, said the sheriff recognizes that Thomas has to make difficult decisions in what to prosecute. But Chagolla said New Times is "victimizing the sheriff and his spouse" who are harassed with threats.

Wilenchik did not return repeated calls to his office.

On StarNet: Read the Phoenix New Times coverage of this story. Find a link to the paper's site at azstarnet.com/news.