Man suspected of burglarizing Hobbs’ campaign office was in jail for another alleged burglary when arrested

A 36-year-old man was arrested in connection to a break-in at a campaign office for Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, Phoenix police announced Thursday. 

Daniel Mota Dos Reis was already sitting in jail preparing to be released Wednesday night on unrelated burglary charges when an officer saw his image in a news story and recognized him, police said.

That officer then contacted the jail and had him re-arrested and recovered the items stolen from the Hobbs campaign and he was booked for one count of third-degree burglary. 

Officers had been called to the Hobbs’ campaign office near Virginia and Central Avenues Tuesday afternoon and learned of the burglary that had happened “sometime during the night” before, according to Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Phil Krynsky. 

Mota Dos Reis is believed to have been responsible for “a pair of commercial burglaries” that occurred along the Central Phoenix Corridor. It is not his first brush with the law. 

Court records show that he has had previous run-ins for attempted third degree trespass in 2021, interfering with a judicial procedure and speeding. His cases for trespassing and interfering with a judicial procedure were dismissed. 

The stolen items from Hobbs, who is the Democratic nominee for governor, were still on him when he was in jail and were returned to the campaign. 

The campaign did not return a request for comment or respond to questions about what was stolen, or why the campaign chose to initially place blame on GOP opponent Kari Lake for the break in. 

During a late afternoon “emergency” press conference, Lake capitalized on the break-in, decrying what she claimed was “malpractice” by the news media for writing about the break-in and publishing Hobbs’ initial statement about the incident. 

“She knew darn well that I had nothing to do with it,” Lake said, who had previously compared the break-in to actor Jussie Smollet, who was caught lying to the police about being the victim of a hate crime. There is no such evidence to suggest that the Hobbs campaign faked the break-in. 

On Thursday, Lake said her reference to Smollet wasn’t meant to claim Hobbs fabricated the break-in, but to blame to media for running with a story before verifying it.

Lake then urged reporters to cover an alleged incident at her office last night that she said Hobbs was responsible for. She then displayed a poster featuring a fake CCTV image of a person in a chicken suit rummaging through boxes and trash, later acknowledging the claim was a “joke” meant to mock the media attending her press conference.

“It’s not a joke when someone gets broken into,” Lake said, with the image of a person in a chicken costume caught on a fake CCTV camera beside her.