Arpaio legal tab at $100M, taxpayers foot his last bills
PHOENIX — Nearly five years after Joe Arpaio was voted out as sheriff of Arizona’s most populous county, taxpayers have covered one of the last major bills from the thousands of lawsuits the lawman’s headline-grabbing tactics inspired — and the overall legal tab has hit $100 million.
Officials in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, agreed last week to pay $3.1 million to cover the county’s portion of a settlement with a restaurant owner who alleged Arpaio defamed him and violated his rights when raiding his businesses.
The payout boosted the cost stemming from the Republican sheriff’s six terms to $100 million for attorney fees, settlements and other costs the county has paid from lawsuits over things such as jail deaths, failed investigations of the sheriff’s political enemies and immigration raids of businesses.
That doesn’t include the separate $178 million and counting taxpayers have shelled out in a 2007 racial profiling case stemming from Arpaio’s signature traffic patrols targeting immigrants, though about 75% of that spending has occurred during his successor’s watch as he works to comply with court-ordered overhauls of the sheriff’s office.
Michael Manning, an attorney who won settlements over deaths in Arpaio’s jails and on behalf of county employees investigated by the sheriff, said it was shameful that voters kept re-electing Arpaio as his legal bills piled up.
“They just didn’t care as long as they got the entertainment value,” Manning said. “And it just went on and on.”