Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has got to be the most sued law official in the land. To date he has cost County taxpayers more than $50 million in lawsuits.
According to Maricopa County Risk Management records, almost 6,300 claims and lawsuits have been filed against Sheriff Arpaio and his office since he began as sheriff in 1993. The cost to defend those cases has been more than $50 million. ABC15.com
Most of the cases were filed by people he had illegally detained or incarcerated; a few were brought by the families of inmates who were beaten or killed while in his custody -- not convicted of anything, just awaiting trial. Charles Agster, for instance, was a mentally handicapped man who died after being restrained by County deputies. The jury's verdict was $9 million. And there's a shitload of lawsuits pending, filed by elected officials, judges, and others who have been indicted or harassed by the mean-spirited goon. The final payout could easily reach $100 million. So much for Republican fiscal conservatism.
Two federal probes of Arpaio are underway: a DOJ investigation and a grand jury, mostly looking into abuse of powers and racial profiling. Concerning the second point, another case was decided today and, as usual, Arpaio is on the losing end. I and other residents of Maricopa County will be shelling out $200,000 to Julian and Julio Mora:
See, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona has just announced that it's reached a settlement in the federal lawsuit Mora v. Arpaio, one of the most egregious cases of ethnic and racial profiling to come out of Arpaio's campaign of Hispanic-hunting sweeps and anti-immigrant raids on local businesses.
Arpaio's lawyer Tim Casey today threw in the towel, essentially agreeing to a $200,000 payout to Julian and Julio Mora, the father and son zip-tied and held for three hours during a 2009 MCSO raid of the Phoenix landscaping firm Handyman Maintenance Inc., where the elder Mora worked. New Times
You've probably heard of Arpaio's infamous "sweeps," where his deputies march through a neighborhood or business, catching anyone in their net whose citizenship status appears suspicious (i.e. brown people). Landscaping companies, car washes, warehouses, and fast-food restaurants are prime targets for the racist thug, and not a week goes by that we don't hear of another Arpaio mass arrest.
In 2009 his men stopped Julian Mora while he was driving his landscaping truck to a work site with his son. Without charging the two men with anything, deputies detained them both for hours, refused to allow them to relieve themselves (the father is diabetic), and then made fun of the son when they finally allowed him to pee while still zip-tied. Ha ha.
Big problem for the buttface Sheriff: the father Julian is a legal permanent resident, his son Julio is an American citizen, and they had committed no traffic violation -- or any crime other than being Hispanic (which, for Arpaio, is a crime).
It gets more bizarre: The Sheriff's Office couldn't even determine which deputies detained the Moras (great paperwork there), so in the court records the offending officers are identified as "John Doe Deputies":
"In short, the undisputed evidence shows that when the John Doe Deputies stopped plaintiffs, they had no suspicion, reasonable or otherwise, that plaintiffs were in violation of the traffic laws or engaged in criminal activity." New Times
The Court ruled that the Sheriff's Office violated the men's Fourth Amendment Right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure. I'd like to see the $200,000 settlement coming out of Arpaio's healthy war chest, or his own pocket for that matter, but I'll pay my taxpayer's share if doing so helps drum this corrupt dickhead out of office.
Working on a Chain Gang
All this is backdrop to the Sheriff's next ego-driven TV stunt: He'll be using a chain gang -- yes, prisoners in real chains and striped uniforms -- during next week's All-Star Game in Phoenix, to clean up trash around Chase Field.
With a national TV audience of millions expected for baseball's All-Star Game, Sheriff Joe Arpaio could not pass up the chance to promote two of his favorite topics: himself and his disdain for undocumented immigrants. Arizona Republic
Some of the convicts on the chain gang will be immigrants convicted of DUI. Arpaio says he wants to send a message about the dangers of drunk driving, but the real message is transparent: "Nation, look at my mug, fuck you liberals."