What's this judge's name? I was posting about Judge G. Murray Snow, whose order Arpaio contemptuously bragged about disobeying.
...... it’s what happened next that changed the story from defiance to conspiracy.
In May 2014, a deputy on Arpaio’s immigration-sweep team who’d been arrested on drug charges hung himself on his pool table, leaving behind a video-taped suicide note in which he threatened to expose the sheriff’s office. Deputies department wide, including those on the immigration-sweep team, had made thousands of audio and video recordings of traffic stops and never turned them over to plaintiffs in the Melendres case. When investigators searched the dead deputy’s home, they found some of these recordings and, along with drugs and illegal weapons, hundreds of stolen IDs, Mexican passports, licenses, Social Security cards, all believed to have been confiscated during traffic stops and deliberately hidden. Judge Snow asked Arpaio to turn over the tapes, as well as those from recorded interactions with deputies across the department, and to gather them quietly to avoid tempting deputies to destroy or lose evidence. Instead, Arpaio’s office sent out a mass email alerting supervisors.
The civil contempt of court hearing began in April 2015. Arpaio had repeatedly ignored the injunction to stop his immigration sweeps, he resisted department reforms, and now the court learned he failed to turn over thousands of recorded traffic-stop interactions. Arpaio admitted guilt before the hearing began, hoping to avoid a trial, and possibly to avoid talking about a private investigator the sheriff’s office hired for $250,000 to based entirely on a tip he received through Facebook—an alleged plot to oust him involving Snow, his wife, and the U.S. Justice Department.
It wasn’t until May 2016 that the civil case would be resolved, when Snow found Arpaio guilty of contempt. But in the interim, Arpaio’s staff threw him a party for being the longest-serving sheriff in Maricopa’s history; he failed to turn over 50 hard drives related to the conspiracy investigation; and U.S. Marshals seized evidence from the sheriff’s office.
To the news that Snow intended to seek criminal charges against him, Arpaio said: “It is clear that the corrupt Obama Justice Department is trying to influence my re-election as Sheriff of Maricopa County.”
Despite already admitting guilt to nearly the same charges in the civil trial, Arpaio vowed to “fight this case tooth and nail because I know these charges are rubbish.”
So is this the last ride of Sheriff Joe?
Arizona is now one-third Latino, and the red state Arpaio entered office in is now hued purple. There is some evidence Arizona Republicans are realizing they won’t be able to win without these voters: In 2011 voters recalled state Senate President Russell Pearce, the author of SB 1070, Arizona’s tough immigration law, and the state’s most anti-immigration politician. Then in the 2012 primary election, Pearce was beaten by a moderate conservative candidate. Arpaio has never done well among Latinos, but even his former base seems to have grown tired of his antics; this racial-profiling case alone is expected to cost taxpayers in Maricopa $72 million, and that’s a drop in the bucket of the many, many lawsuits Arpaio has been— and is still—entangled in. The recent poll of Maricopa residents who voted in three of the last four elections found Arpaio is losing among men, independents, and voters ages 50-64. The only group Arpaio is carrying is the elderly.
Some Maricopa voters have shown they’re willing to vote repeatedly for a man accused of racial profiling, but a potential convict? Maybe not.
theatlantic.com |
