Bounty hunter arrested for provoking rival's botched raid on Phoenix police chief

A bounty hunter believed responsible for deliberately giving a rival false information that led to a mistaken raid on the Phoenix police chief’s home was arrested on Tuesday, police said.

Aaron Bray, 28, was taken into custody and booked into county jail on suspicion of one count of felony computer tampering for allegedly creating the face-off at Chief Joseph Yahner’s Phoenix home on Aug. 4.

Police said Bray is accused of sending a text message to bounty hunter Brent Farley (pictured above) telling him that an Oklahoma fugitive wanted on a drug charge was at the chief’s address, sparking the raid by 11 individuals.

Farley, 43, was arrested in connection with the erroneous nighttime raid that saw him confront Yahner after banging on his door and demanding that he be allowed to come inside, police said.

Farley and several others were carrying handguns, police said. He faces disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing charges.

Police said the bounty hunters were told they were at the wrong address and were asked to leave. There was no physical altercation, they said.

The bondsmen were working for the NorthStar Fugitive Recovery and Delta One Tactical Recovery companies.

"We believe Bray was trying to get at Farley," said Phoenix police spokesman Sergeant Trent Crump. "We don’t know why ... we just know he was trying to set him up."

He said investigators found that Bray obtained a “spoof” telephone number indicating that the text was from Oklahoma, where the fugitive was wanted, to help pull off the scheme.

(Reporting by David Schwartz; Editing by Victoria Cavaliere and Paul Tait)