PHOENIX (AP) - An applicant for an Arizona county assessor position withdrew following evidence that he appeared to have plagiarized portions of his application, a newspaper reported.
Michael Farrar dropped his bid to become the new Maricopa County assessor, who determines property values in Arizona’s most populous county, The Arizona Capitol Times reported last week.
The newspaper reported that it did an online search and found that Farrar lifted passages from Forbes magazine, the California State Association of Counties, Thomas Edison State University and other websites and inserted them into his application.
Farrar, a former member of the Carefree Town Council who ran unsuccessfully for the Arizona House in 2010, told the newspaper that he “sent the wrong (application) over without the citations.”
Farrar said he withdrew the application not because he was concerned about a plagiarism accusation but because he is too busy to do the job.
“I just can’t do it, there’s too many other things I am involved in,” he said.
Farrar said he withdrew on Jan. 30, before the newspaper spoke to him on the phone about suspected plagiarism.
But Maricopa County spokesman Fields Moseley said officials received a letter of withdrawal from Farrar minutes after he discussed his application with the Capitol Times.
The county Board of Supervisors was previously unaware of any suspected plagiarism, Moseley said.
There are 11 candidates remaining for the assessor position that’s being vacated by Paul Petersen, who resigned in January.
Peterson, also an adoption attorney, has been charged with running a human smuggling operation that illegally paid pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to give up their babies in the U.S. He’s pleaded not guilty.
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