Mark Lamb built his political brand on faith, family, and law enforcement. Now the 53-year-old former Pinal County sheriff and Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for Arizona's 5th Congressional District faces a cascade of allegations from multiple women claiming he carried on extramarital affairs, sent explicit photos, and used his authority as sheriff to silence accusers.
The Arizona Republic published a report sharing what it described as dozens of alleged exchanges and sexual images sent from Lamb's phone and social media accounts, material spanning the period before and after he became sheriff in 2017. The newspaper said it obtained private correspondence from a former campaign staffer and three women, each with a different reason for coming forward.
Lamb's attorneys have called the accusations "false," "baseless and harmful." A former Arizona Supreme Court justice working for Lamb's campaign, Andrew Gould, told the Arizona Republic that rumors had "circulated online for years" and "are repeated without verification and often to only cause great reputational and political harm." But the sheer number of named accusers and the alleged involvement of county officials make this more than a garden-variety campaign-season smear, and conservative voters in Arizona deserve a clear accounting of what is alleged and what remains unproven.
The most detailed allegations come from Jillian Stannard, described as a longtime friend of Mark and Janel Lamb. Stannard alleged that Lamb facilitated an affair between his wife, Janel, and Stannard's husband, Matt Hilsabeck, who also served as chair of Lamb's election committee. Stannard accused Lamb of involving them in a swinging group and said the affair resulted in her divorce.
Stannard further alleged that Lamb showed her an explicit photo of himself.
Tammy Peacock, an Arizona woman who the Daily Mail reported alleged she had an extramarital affair with Lamb for years, reportedly got a tattoo of Lamb's sheriff badge. Peacock died in a 2021 car crash and cannot speak for herself. But the Arizona Republic shared messages in which Lamb allegedly warned Peacock that Arizona's revenge-porn statute was a "Class 4 felony" and wrote: "Please just no more posting... I will call DPS [Arizona Department of Public Safety]."
In another alleged message, Lamb told Peacock he could order DPS "not to proceed," adding: "My wife says she is okay with that too."
If those messages are authentic, they raise a question far more serious than marital infidelity. A sitting sheriff threatening to deploy state law enforcement against a private citizen to suppress embarrassing personal information, and then offering to call off those same officers as a bargaining chip, is a potential abuse of power that voters have every right to weigh.
Former Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer added an official dimension to the allegations. Volkmer alleged that Lamb, while serving as sheriff, told the Pinal County Attorney's Office to "explore" criminal charges against both Peacock and Stannard over their social media posts about his private conduct.
Volkmer said no charges were brought after what he described as a "cursory" investigation. He also said Peacock had "zero credibility." That assessment cuts both ways, it may undermine Peacock's claims, but it also means the county attorney's office looked at the situation and declined to act, even after the sheriff himself allegedly pushed for prosecution.
A third accuser, Cassie Hartbauer, a former Colorado corrections officer, claimed she was one of three of Lamb's online lovers at the same time. A fourth woman, Yvonne Belloc, alleged Lamb sided with the father of her children in a custody dispute and shared allegations from Stannard and Peacock on social media.
Separate from the Arizona Republic report, a sexual discrimination filing reviewed by the Daily Mail added another layer. Beth Goulden, chair of the Arizona Sex Offender Management Board, alleged that Pinal County Prosecuting Attorney Brad Miller made inappropriate sexual comments to her about Lamb. The filing quoted Miller as saying, "You know Mark and Janel are swingers," and alleged Miller told Goulden that "Mark sends d*** pics to women."
That filing places the allegations inside official county government channels. A county prosecutor allegedly making those statements about a sitting sheriff, to the chair of the state's sex offender management board, no less, is the kind of detail that does not stay buried in a campaign year.
When Phoenix New Times asked Lamb about the filing earlier this year, he responded: "I don't know how my name ended up in it." He added: "But you're in politics, people say nasty stuff about you all the time. Unfortunately, most of it is untruthful, if not 95 percent of it." Lamb also said he found it "weird they're over there talking about me" and insisted he is with "one woman."
Lamb's public persona has been built on traditional values. He authored a 2020 political memoir titled "American Sheriff: Traditional Values in a Modern World." He and his wife, Janel, who wrote her own book, "The Sheriff's Wife: Holding It All Together Behind the Scenes in Politics", are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church reportedly investigated the couple in 2018. The outcome of that investigation is not publicly known.
The Lambs have been photographed at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and Lamb carries a presidential endorsement. Janel Lamb is also alleged to have sent nude and provocative photos to people outside their marriage, though she and her husband deny the swinging allegations.
Allegations of sexual impropriety surfaced during Lamb's 2020 re-election campaign for sheriff, when flyers were posted across Pinal County. Those earlier accusations did not derail his re-election. Whether they derail his congressional bid is another matter.
Let's be clear about what is established and what is not. The allegations against Lamb come from multiple named individuals, a former county attorney, and a legal filing, not from anonymous social media posts. The Arizona Republic says it reviewed dozens of exchanges and images. Lamb's side has denied the claims broadly but has not, based on available statements, addressed the specific messages or photos point by point.
Several questions remain unanswered. Did Lamb, as sheriff, actually direct state law enforcement resources to suppress personal information about himself? What specific charges did the Pinal County Attorney's Office consider before declining to prosecute? What was the result of the church's 2018 investigation? And why has the campaign's response been limited to blanket denials rather than specific rebuttals?
Conservative voters rightly hold their candidates to the standards those candidates claim to champion. Mark Lamb ran on traditional values, law and order, and personal integrity. If these allegations are false, his campaign owes voters more than a spokesman calling them "baseless." If they contain truth, voters in Arizona's 5th Congressional District deserve to know before they cast a ballot, not after.
The Daily Mail reported it contacted Lamb's campaign and Gould for further comment.
There is no partisan angle here that helps anyone. Lamb is a Republican running in a Republican primary with a presidential endorsement. The accusers are not Democratic operatives, they are women from his personal and professional orbit, a former county attorney, and a county prosecutor quoted in a legal filing. The allegations do not come from the left. They come from Pinal County.
And the most troubling thread is not about anyone's private life. It is about whether a man with a badge used the power of that badge to threaten and silence people who knew too much. That is a question of governance, not gossip.
A candidate who writes a book called "Traditional Values in a Modern World" is asking voters to trust his character. When that trust is challenged by named witnesses, official filings, and a former county attorney's on-the-record account, the answer cannot be "95 percent of it is untruthful." Voters need to know which 5 percent isn't.
