In a previous diary on the dubiously distinctive Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio, Mother Mags speculated on whether or not Joe's deputies will rat him out, now that the Justice Department has subpoenaed what looks to be a rather damaging investigative report into criminal activity at the Sheriff's office. In a partial, heavily redacted release of that report, it seems he has chosen to rat them out first.
David Hendershott, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's longtime chief deputy, engaged in immoral conduct and violated a range of office and county policies, according to 300 pages of heavily redacted documents from an internal investigation turned over Thursday to The Arizona Republic by Arpaio's office.
Violations cited in the documents included incompetence, lying, misuse of county resources and attempting to influence an election.
Arpaio fired Hendershott last week, so from a court-of-public-opinion POV, it seems to serve Joe's interests to find the most damning material on his deputies and release that -- first -- before the material on Joe himself goes public. As per Mother Mags, a week ago, the Justice Department subpoenaed the entire report, so it is only a matter of time. Either they will release it, or perhaps our local news agencies will win their court case and acquire the report. In the meantime, Arpaio can destroy the credibility of his potential rats by this sort of selective release.
Not that I mean to defend the rats, really. They have earned what is coming to them. Today's revelations on Hendershott show him stopping internal affairs investigations into his pals, throwing the Sheriff's posse money into a baseball team his son played in, had a friend hired for a fake job, and my personal favorite, flat out lied to make a Sheriff's stop-smoking program look better:
When probed about the issue, Hendershott acknowledged it was possible he exaggerated the figures, saying, "Just for the sake of argument, who cares?"
/wave
/rasp
Apparently Sheriff Joe cares, pal, because he's using it to make you look bad. :) Best of luck to the rats. My advice would be to take him down with you. Do all of Arizona a favor. You've made your dirty money, gave away some to your buddies, and no doubt book deals are in the futures of some of these fellows. Drag him under that bus with you. Nobody liked that bus anyway.
Yeah, I admit the last link is somewhat unrelated, but how can I joke about buses and not mention Joe's very expensive, criminally investigated, and ultimately unused bus, pelted and damaged by hail, as if the land itself took issue with the Sheriff?