A sheriff's deputy will have his day in court today, eight months after a group he organized made the first of two large, anonymous donations to the Arizona Republican Party.

Joel Fox, a captain with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, is appealing the $315,000 fine imposed last year by the Maricopa County Elections Department after he refused to submit campaign finance reports for the Sheriff's Command Association, or SCA, which gave a total of $105,000 to the Republican Party.

Although the state GOP later returned the money to Fox, critics have accused the Republican Party of using the money to pay for a series of negative campaign ads against the Democratic opponents of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas.

Fox, the only known member of the group, has refused to identify where the money came from. He has said he formed the group in 2006 as a way to combat what he called unfair news stories about MCSO and its employees.

At the hearing before an administrative law judge, Fox will argue that his group's contribution was not intended to pay for political campaigns, and therefore SCA should be allowed to avoid following campaign finance laws.

After a pre-trial conference in February, Fox said he gave the money to the Republican Party because he felt any attempts to fight negative media depictions of sheriff's deputies and detention officers would be unfairly linked to Arpaio's re-election campaign.

"I thought, it's more money than I need to have. I'll give it to someone who knows what to do with it," he said Feb. 4.