Image: Ray Stern

Sheriff Joe Arpaio stands next to his ally, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, during a news conference in 2009 announcing "corruption" in Maricopa County. In a new recording, Arpaio claims he busted Mexicans to "spite" his critics.

News media across the country lit up over the weekend with anti-Sheriff Joe Arpaio stories after a recording surfaced in which Arpaio admits he busted Mexicans to "spite" critics.

Bigots at the Texans For Immigration Reform fundraising rally in September of 2009 laughed as the Maricopa County sheriff described the illegitimate reason for targeting Hispanics in illegal-immigrant roundups.

After critics including local politicians and officials with the U.S. Justice Department "went after me, we arrested 500 more just for spite," said Arpaio. A couple of days ago, he clarified for the Associated Press that he only regretted not mentioning that he had busted "thousands," and not just 500.

Arpaio has been accused of leading the worst case of racial profiling in a law enforcement agency in U.S. history. The Justice Department, which announced the damning findings against the Sheriff's Office in December, appears ready to sue Arpaio for failing to cooperate in settling the matter.

No local observers should be surprised to hear Arpaio mock his accusers. Arizonans have long been aware that Arpaio's anti-illegal-immigrant crusade has been conducted mainly to pump up his political mojo among right-wingers.

As we noted last week, one of Arpaio's top men, Deputy Chief Frank Munnell, and Arpaio's longtime spokeswoman, Lisa Allen, seem to agree in a secretly made recording that the immigrant round-ups are done for publicity.

Another great example of Arpaio's ulterior motives can be found in the lengthy investigation into whistle-blower Munnell's allegations.

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andrew thomas, arizona, county attorney, crime sweeps, disbarred, hispanics, ice, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, immigrants, justice department, latinos, maricopa county, mexicans, migrants, racial profiling, roundups, sheriff joe arpaio

Joe Arpaio is heading to court after failing to negotiation a settlement with the Department of Justice over its racial-profiling findings.

Few would be surprised to know that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office is lying about about its negotiations with the federal government over accusations of widespread racial profiling by deputies.

Both Arpaio and his ally, County Attorney Bill Montgomery, have accused the U.S. Department of Justice of lying about the evidence in its December finding that Arpaio's office practices routine discrimination against Hispanics. That could be true -- it wouldn't be a shock to find out the federal government has lied.

But we don't know the folks at the DOJ as well as we do Arpaio and those who work for him. Arpaio, as we've learned over the years, is a habitual liar.

For example, Arpaio lied to the public in 2009 when he announced that a campaign-finance scandal had "nothing to do with the Sheriff's Office." Arpaio lied about the 2010 arrest of County Supervisor Don Stapley. Arpaio apparently lied about his lack of memory during the Andrew Thomas hearings. The examples could go on and on.

Now the DOJ is accusing Arpaio's lawyer of lying and cheating in their negotiations to resolve the racial-profiling problem.

Arpaio and his representatives are such forked-tongue scoundrels, to paraphrase a new letter by DOJ deputy assistant Attorney General Roy Austin, the federal government is giving up on him.

See you in court, Austin tells Arpaio in the April 11 letter to Joseph Popolizio, Arpaio's lawyer. More >>

Image: Ray Stern

Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas apparently had an "unholy collaboration" that led to Thomas' disbarment.

If the state Supreme Court had a disciplinary panel for sheriffs, Joe Arpaio would in all likelihood be stripped of his ability to practice law enforcement.

Yet Arpaio continues to skate toward potential re-election despite his role in many of the same actions that got his former ally, ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, disbarred today.

Justice could still take place for Arpaio in the form of a criminal indictment from the U.S. Department of Justice, which  for more than three years has been looking at alleged civil rights violations by Arpaio that include the claims of abuse-of-power addressed today in regard to Thomas.

There was an "unholy collaboration" between Arpaio and Thomas in their unethical fight against political enemies in the county, the state Supreme Court's disciplinary panel wrote in the opinion released today.

As far as Thomas and his former underlings are concerned, the evidence against them "speaks for itself" in terms of an apparent collaboration, the panel says. Thomas, Lisa Aubuchon, and Rachel Alexander never looked for evidence that might have stemmed from the investigations conducted by Arpaio's office, "because they always knew there was none," the panel concluded.

 

Aubuchon testified that she would casually sit in the office of Arpaio's former chief deputy, Dave Hendershott, "some evenings" to talk about the tactics in the county fight -- and Arpaio was there -- the panel wrote.

Presiding Disciplinary Judge William O'Neil, attorney Mark Sifferman, and the Reverend John Hall note somberly in their findings, "The Sheriff is not subject to the Professional Rules of Conduct for attorneys."

Arpaio is, however, subject to the whims of voters. It remains to be seen how seriously county residents will consider the evidence of Arpaio's corruption that surfaced in the case against Thomas, Aubuchon, and Alexander.

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Talks between Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the U.S. Justice Department over the federal government's racial-profiling allegations have broken down.

Negotiations between Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the U.S. Justice Department over racial-profiling allegations have stalled because of Arpaio's refusal to let a federal "monitor" check out his office.

The feds announced in December that the Maricopa County Sheriff was behind the worst case of racial profiling in U.S. history, and the two entities have been discussing how to resolve the problem.

Those talks broke down, however, after Arpaio demanded today that he wouldn't put up with no stinkin' federal monitor overseeing his decisions. The Justice Department says that "precondition" means talks about an agreement to resolve the discrimination under Arpaio's watch could be terminated.

Clearly, the wrist-slappers over at the Justice Department had fooled themselves into thinking Arpaio would play nice. They must not have read New Times' January article by Michael Lacey, Village Voice Media Executive Editor, entitled "Coddling Joe: How Do You Collaborate With a Felon?"

Arpaio, who has been busy lately trying to prove that President Obama is really a natural-born African, says he and his office don't discriminate against Hispanics.


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Image: Ray Stern

Manuel Nieto Jr. and Velia Meraz are among the plaintiffs in the Melendres vs. Arpaio racial profiling lawsuit.

A truckload of paperwork was filed today in the racial profiling lawsuit against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office, including succinct accounts of the allegations and responses by both sides.

The case involves several plaintiffs, including immigrant Jose Ortega Melendres, but was expanded in a ruling by federal judge G. Murray Snow to possibly include any Hispanic stopped by the Sheriff's Office who alleges discrimination.

Snow's ruling and criticism of the Arpaio's office came about a week after the U.S. Department of Justice announced that MCSO had committed the worst racial profiling by a law enforcement agency in U.S. history.

With all the interest in the case, we thought we'd provide a little weekend reading for you. The filings comprise hundreds of pages of facts, motions and exhibits, and we figured we'd save you a few bucks by providing it all here at no charge.

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The Maricopa County Sheriff's office demands -- again -- that the federal government turn over more proof of its claim that the office has practiced routine racial profiling.

In a letter sent to the U.S. Department of Justice today (see below), a private attorney hired by the sheriff's office says it would be "utterly impossible" to find that evidence in 2 million pages of records it turned over to the DOJ.

The DOJ obviously has a subset of those documents that it relied upon to make its findings, writes taxpayer-funded attorney Joseph Popolizio, and "to expect the MCSO to guess which documents on which the DOJ relied to reach its findings is patently unfair."

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Sheriff Joe Arpaio isn't yet ready to comment on a federal court ruling aimed at hampering his ability to investigate immigration crimes during traffic stops.

​Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio seems to have been stunned into silence by a federal court ruling intended to hamper his office's ability to conduct immigration enforcement operations.

U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow ruled last week in a racial-profiling lawsuit against Arpaio and the Sheriff's Office that deputies can no longer stop people, as usual, to investigate suspected violations of the state's human-smuggling law. In court last week, MCSO lawyer Timothy Casey argued that such a prohibition could affect the agency's ability to do its job.

So far, Valley residents haven't seen the sort of bluster by Arpaio that immediately followed the December 15 Justice Department announcement about MCSO's racial profiling. After he was told by the feds that his agency has committed some of the worst racial discrimination by police in U.S. history, Arpaio responded with a news conference in which he stated repeatedly that he will "continue to do my job and enforce all the laws -- so I think ... you'll see that very soon."

 

This is a different situation. Judge Snow didn't just issue a caustic warning and threaten to sue the Sheriff's Office, like the DOJ did.

Snow's order in the Melendres lawsuit enjoins Arpaio's deputies from detaining any person based only on the belief that the person might be in the country illegally.

Arpaio had been justifying his roundups of illegal immigrants during his infamous crime sweeps by arguing that he was enforcing the state's human-smuggling law. At a hearing last week, Judge Snow and Casey argued over the method of that enforcement.

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Image: Ray Stern

MCSO deputy hassling a Hispanic.

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U.S. District G. Murray Snow ruled today that any Hispanic stopped by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies since January 1, 2007 -- or will be stopped in the future -- can sue the Sheriff's Office in a class-action lawsuit. The ruling in the Melendres racial-profiling case also enjoins the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office from detaining any person based only on the belief that the person might be in the country illegally.

At yesterday's hearing, Arpaio's lawyer said such a prohibition would hamper the ability of MCSO to conduct law enforcement in general. While that may have been an exaggeration, it seems clear the ruling will make it difficult for the sheriff to conduct enforcement operations based on the state's human-smuggling law. That law is how Arpaio justifies the saturation patrols in which illegal immigrants are rounded up.

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U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow

​U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow set up Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for a knockout in his latest ruling on a racial-profiling lawsuit.

Snow's ruling (see below) in the Melendres Vs. Arpaio case eviscerates the Sheriff's Office for its record-shredding tactics, noting that deputies intentionally destroyed records that revealed their unethical enforcement operations. The ruling, made public today, comes a week after the Department of Justice revealed that a three-year investigation concluded Arpaio's shop routinely violated the rights of Valley Hispanics.More >>

Sheriff Joe Arpaio

It was the most egregious case of racial profiling federal experts have ever seen.

Findings in a long-running investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office found that Sheriff Arpaio's department has an "ingrained culture" of abusing the rights of Latinos. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez announced today that the MCSO committed racial profiling, retaliates against its critics, and failed to investigate hundreds of sex crimes.

Perez wants to work with MCSO and "anyone who has a stake in this issue" to reform the agency, which he called "broken."

The Justice Department threatened to file suit against MCSO within 60 days if Arpaio doesn't take immediate steps to work with the Civil Rights Division to correct the violations.

The federal criminal investigation is ongoing, Perez said.

More to come...