The Arizona Corporation Commission has agreed to give a nonprofit watchdog group access to a commissioner’s cell phone as requested, but under certain conditions.

Washington D.C.-based Checks and Balances Project has been hounding the utility regulator for Commissioner Bob Stump’s phone to extract metadata and recover hundreds of deleted text messages he exchanged during last year’s election between an Arizona Public Service official, the head of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, and current Commissioners Tom Forese and Doug Little, who were running for office at the time.

Checks and Balances threatened to sue if the commission didn’t hand over Stump’s phone to a leading forensic expert it hired to extract the metadata by 5 p.m. Friday.

About an hour before that deadline, the commission’s outside attorney, David Cantelme, sent a response.

“There is no point in us engaging in a continuing ‘battle of letters,’ which will only waste time and money,” Cantelme wrote. “Rather, now, it is time to try to resolve this dispute in a practical manner, if we can, short of a lawsuit.”

He said Stump’s cell phone is locked away in the commission’s safe, and on Monday the commission will search for a retired Arizona judge or justice to serve as a mediator for the extraction.

Also, he said the commission will pick the forensic expert to do the task, not Checks and Balances.

“Prudence and good judgment will not allow the commission to release the iPhone 5 to your expert,” he wrote. “Doing so breaks the chain of custody in an unacceptable way.”

Scott Peterson, executive director Checks and Balances, issued a statement shortly after receiving Cantelme’s letter.

"That’s not enough. Each side's expert should be allowed to do their own downloads, so there is no question afterward about fairness and that the citizens of Arizona can be reassured that public records have not been hidden from view," Peterson said.

Peterson didn’t, however, mention what his next step will be.