Joe Arpaio's Victim Deborah Braillard: Seven Figure Settlement in Wrongful Death Lawsuit, ABC 15 Reports

Enough! is Enough! This sheriff is out of control and costing the tax payers way too much. It's time to finally get rid of this corrupt cop by heading to the voter booths come November.

Thoughtful people will contemplate two important considerations from this horrendous story of Deborah Braillard’s unnecessary death:

1.  Cost.  The cost of this case to the County will easily exceed $6 million and none of it will be covered by insurance.  The County doesn’t make it easy for the public to figure out how much this case cost, but we know there’s the $1.8 million in attorney’s fees accumulated before the trial.  

The legal fees in a high profile three week trial could approach another million, and there will be on-gong costs as the settlement is implemented.  We have no idea how much was spent on expert witnesses, court reporters, and other costs.  The total of these costs to the County will be around $3 million when all is said and done.

There are the costs of the plaintiff: legal fees, expert witnesses, court and other costs.  These will be on the same order as the County has incurred.  Michael Manning does not work for free.

There is the immense amount of time employees of the Sheriff’s Office and other County employees have devoted to this case over the last seven years.  How many County employees were questioned, prepared, deposed, testified?   It has to involve thousands of hours, including that of very high ranking people, hopefully including members of the Board of Supervisors paying attention to atrocities occurring in their County on their watch.

Why did these fees run so high, and the case take so long?  The Sheriff used every tactic to delay and frustrate, including destroying evidence, filing for a new judge, trying to exclude witnesses, etc., etc. over seven years.

Finally, there is the cost of the settlement, which could dwarf all of these other costs.  $6 million may well be too little, and none of these costs will be covered by insurance.  

The impact on the County’s reputation of such atrocious behavior paints the County, indeed, the whole state, with a very black brush. The impact on the morale of County employees has to be dreadful; what self-respecting person could stomach such a barbaric environment?

This scenario occurs with every case against the county.  The announced settlement or award is only a fraction of the total cost.

2.  What else is out there?  Of far more significance than this one case is the question of how much is out there in pending cases, in notices of claim, in incidents that have occurred but are not yet reported; and the big question of what may happen in the future.   We know of two recent high profile deaths: Marty Atencio and Raymond Farinas.  

We know there are thousands of pending cases, involving non-lethal maltreatment, false arrests, civil rights violations and other causes.

As for the future, the jail holds people convicted of nothing or of relatively minor crimes, who are subjected to exposure (145 degrees according to the Sheriff, and sub-freezing temperatures at other times), malnutrition, untrained guards operating in a milieu of barbarism, and, obviously, woefully inadequate access to essential medical care.  

What of a die off after some especially extreme weather, a round of infections, a course of tainted food, or some unforeseen disaster?  A hundred? Two hundred dead people?  Would that bring the cost of the Sheriff home?  Is that what it will take?

YPS, yes it is County Risk Management that makes the decision to settle this case.  It would be an insurance company, but Joe Arpaio has made the County nearly uninsurable.  With no carrier willing to insure MCSO with less than a $5,000,000 deductible, every penny of this settlement comes out of the taxpayer's pocket. 

BTW, are you really Rachel Alexander, the (only) intellectual conservative? 

The sound you hear below is Arpaio's balls hitting JoeArpaioFan on the chin.

Another embarassment. I know people from around the world who ask me why we would vote for such media hounds. Between this PR nightmare and the governor our state has become a laughing stock planet wide. Enough is enough, lets get qualified people on the job and stop pandering to the parties.

Bleed some of those campaign funds into the lawsuits there Joe, instead of plastering that ugly mug on billboards, for once in your life become accountable.

Oh and MiniJoe, yes you JAF, get your scrawny butt to school and learn something about civics and facts, just because YOU say it doesn't make it true, or even reality.

It is too bad so many people had to die and millions of dollars be spent before people started to pay attention.  Arpaio is a carpetbagger & a teabagger.

Lets hope Arpaio's rain of terror ends this November.