Sheriff Joe Arpaio: 20 years of controversies

While no planned action was taken yet by an Arizona prosecutor to address federal government concerns that Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office committed constitutional violations and discrimination against Latinos, the attorney lashed out against Homeland Security's decision to stop Arpaio's work.
Instead, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery criticized Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's decision to stop Arpaio from checking inmates' immigration status and argued it would allow criminals to be released into the community. Montgomery said he was asking President Barack Obama to order the restoration of access to federal systems revoked Thursday.
The Obama administration action came after the Justice Department determined Arpaio's office participated in a "systematic disregard" for the Constitutional rights of Latinos while targeting illegal immigrants, bringing the most bruising criticism yet to the lawman's boundary-pushing foray into Arizona's immigration enforcement. Maltreatment of Spanish-speakers in the jails also violated the constitution, federal officials alleged.


1990s: In the late 1990s, federal investigators probed claims that Arpaio and his top aides ordered surveillance on political foes, including former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley. They also looked into claims that funds tied to the sale of Arpaio's souvenir pink underwear were embezzled. The investigation ended in August 1999 when the U.S. Attorney's Office sent Hendershott a letter saying there was insufficient evidence to justify further action.


2002: Two sheriff's deputies testified that they were ordered to conduct surveillance on unsuccessful sheriff's candidate Tom Bearup.


2002: Sheriff's deputies arrested actor Nick Tarr for wearing a partial uniform of the state Department of Public Safety in his role as a pitchman promoting a proposition to allow slot machines at horse and dog tracks. Arpaio opposed the proposition. Hendershott ordered Tarr's arrest on accusations of impersonating an officer. The citation was later dropped and Maricopa County paid Tarr $125,000 to settle his wrongful-arrest lawsuit against the sheriff.


2004: Claims of using the Sheriff's Office for political purposes surfaced again when Hendershott ordered deputies to Pinal County to investigate accusations against Dan Saban, Arpaio's opponent in the Republican primary. Hendershott would later orchestrate a release to the media of allegations that Saban raped his adoptive mother in the 1970s. The statute of limitations had expired, and Saban, who was 17 at the time of the alleged assault, claimed he was the victim of statutory rape.


2010: Activist Sal Reza was arrested near the Lower Buckeye Jail complex while protesting Senate Bill 1070, Arizona's immigration law. Reza had been arrested a day earlier with another group of protesters outside the Fourth Avenue Jail, and his release required him to avoid contact with victims "including arresting officers." The charges against Reza were eventually dropped at prosecutors' request, and Reza has filed a wrongful-arrest lawsuit against Arpaio.


2011: The Justice Department's memo on its investigation includes a section devoted to alleged retaliation.


Finance


Arpaio has long touted his financial management, frequently boasting of returning funds to county coffers each year as a result of his spartan operation. But he also has faced financial controversies.


Employee classification


A county investigation earlier this year revealed that Arpaio's office had for eight years paid thousands of employees from the wrong accounts, adding up to $99.5million in misappropriated funds.


Sheriff's officials blamed the problem on antiquated software to track employees, but Arpaio's former chief financial officer, Loretta Barkell, said she had brought the problem to the attention of the sheriff and other administrators for years.


"The sheriff waved his hand and said he was not allowing the bean counters to manage his operations, that the budget people, the accounting people, personnel people would have to figure it out and fix it. But he was not going to change his decisions on how he was managing his staff," Barkell said.


Arpaio said the issue was a bookkeeping error that did not impact public safety.


The funds were repaid through an accounting measure, but the issue tarnished the office's reputation for sound financial management.


Misspending


Another investigation in 2010 revealed high-ranking sheriff's deputies violated policy with county-issued credit-card purchases of pricey meals and stays at luxury hotels.


Other records indicated that the Sheriff's Office spent money earmarked to improve jails on training for management that included an eight-week apartment rental in Coronado, Calif., and rental fees for awards banquets and staff parties, including one at a Phoenix amusement park.


Bus controversy


The most visible and controversial purchase with the funds was a $465,000 inmate-transport bus in 2009. County administrators said the purchase was not approved, but sheriff's officials said they never before had had to seek approval to spend the jail funds.


The bus sat idle in a county lot until it was approved for use earlier this year.


Immigration


Inmate treatment helped define Arpaio's early years in office and put him in the national spotlight, but immigration enforcement made him a political superstar.


Arpaio claims he does not need the issue to build his reputation. But immigration is the topic of discussion when presidential candidates come to seek Arpaio's approval, and it is one of the attractions when he speaks around the country.


History


Arpaio wasn't always a supporter of strident immigration enforcement.


When an Army reservist named Patrick Haab held a group of immigrants at gunpoint in the desert in 2005, Arpaio had Haab arrested.


"Being illegal is not a serious crime," Arpaio said.


Then-County Attorney Andrew Thomas' decision not to prosecute Haab drew public support, creating a backlash against Arpaio. The result: The Sheriff's Office began assigning deputies to target human smugglers the following year.


The deputies have since arrested thousands of suspected illegal immigrants as well as smugglers moving their human cargo through the Valley.


Violations cited


In their findings, Justice Department investigators cited what they say are signs of a "chronic culture of disregard" in the Sheriff's Office.


Sheriff's officials claim the Justice Department chose to highlight isolated incidents.


Several cases alleging racial profiling have made their way through courts in recent years:


In July, Maricopa County paid $200,000 to two Hispanic men -- one a U.S. citizen and the other a legal resident -- who were detained during a work-site raid in 2009.


In August, a federal judge dismissed a similar claim stemming from a work-site raid on the grounds that the Sheriff's Office did not participate in or authorize any unconstitutional conduct during the enforcement effort at a landscaping company.


A hearing in federal court this week will help determine whether a similar racial-profiling lawsuit will move forward. The judge hearing that case ordered the Sheriff's Office to pay more than $90,000 in attorneys' fees and costs for destroying documents relevant to the case.


Investigations and operations


Crime-fighting efforts in the Sheriff's Office are often overshadowed by Arpaio's personality and pet projects, but several have earned notice -- both positive and negative.


No blockades: Arpaio's 1992 election was earned in part on his experience with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Within a year of taking office, Arpaio announced a plan to set up a blockade around Maricopa County to search vehicles for drugs. The blockades were found to be illegal and Arpaio was forced to abandon the plan.


Posse prostitution sting: The volunteer sheriff's posse included special operations in the early 1990s to target prostitutes and graffiti vandals. The operations faltered under the weight of bad publicity, including allegations that posse members took advantage of the prostitutes' services. Still, the measures earned Arpaio fans in government and the public.


Boot-camp investigation: When 14-year-old Tony Haynes died at a "tough love" boot camp in 2001, the story was national news. Arpaio's deputies worked the case for years, resulting in the camp director's 2005 conviction for aggravated assault and manslaughter.


Smuggling arrests: This year, sheriff's deputies arrested three of their own when a member of Arpaio's human-smuggling unit and two detention officers were among 19 people arrested on suspicion of participating in a heroin-smuggling operation. The yearlong probe began when a confidential informant told sheriff's investigators that he had witnessed a deputy snorting cocaine and bragging about how he escorted cars and trucks carrying drugs or money to "make sure they would get to their destinations safely."

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio Fires Back Against Fed's

Sheriff Joe Arpaio's boundary-pushing foray into Arizona's immigration enforcement over the last six years met its most bruising criticism when the U.S. Justice Department said the lawman's office carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos and held a "systematic disregard" for the Constitution.


Arpaio, defiant and caught by surprise by the report's release on Thursday, called the allegations a politically motivated attack by President Barack Obama's administration that will make Arizona unsafe by keeping undocumented immigrants on the street.


The Obama administration "might as well erect their own pink neon sign at the Arizona-New Mexico border saying welcome illegals to your United States, my home is your home," he said.


The government found that Arpaio's office committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including unjust immigration patrols and jail policies that deprive prisoners of basic Constitutional rights. "We found discriminatory policing that was deeply rooted in the culture of the department, a culture that breeds a systematic disregard for basic constitutional protections," said Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division.


The report will be used by the Justice Department to seek major changes at Arpaio's office, such as new policies against discrimination and improvements of staff and officers. Arpaio faces a Jan. 4 deadline for saying whether he wants to work out an agreement to make the changes. If not, the federal government will sue him, possibly putting in jeopardy millions of dollars in federal funding for Maricopa County.


At a news conference, Arpaio says the government's move will result in releases from jail of illegal immigrants who had previous been arrested for crimes.
They called it a Pearl Harbor-style sneak attack, nothing but a phony show of political pandering by the Obama administration, pointing to the lack of specifics in the 22-page report.
"President Obama and the band of his merry men might as well erect their own pink neon sign at the Arizona-Mexico border saying 'Welcome all illegals to your United States, our home is your home,'" said Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
He vows he will never resign, and is committed to running his department. He did acknowledge that there may have been some individual cases where deputies didn't do things by the book, and that he would look at those cases individually -- and rejected the sweeping generalizations made in the report.
The government found that Arpaio's office committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including unjust immigration patrols and jail policies that deprive prisoners of basic Constitutional rights. They interviewed 400 people -- inculding 75 current and former employees of MCSO -- and Sheriff Arpaio himself.
"I do have compassion, but I'll tell you one thing. Enforcing the law overrides my compassion," Arpaio said.
The Justice Department wants the office to change its ways or risk losing federal money.
Arpaio has 60 days to implement changes, and then there will be a review. If progress has not been made by then, legal action could be taken.
Also Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security cut ties with MCSO because of the report, ending an agreement that allowed trained sheriff's deputies to enforce immigration law, and restricting the sheriff's ability to screen for inmates immigration status while they are in his jails.