Prosecutors use Arpaio’s words against him at trial
PHOENIX — Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s criminal trial opened Monday over his defiance of the courts in traffic patrols that targeted immigrants, marking the most aggressive effort to hold the former lawman of metro Phoenix accountable for tactics that critics say racially profiled Latinos.
In opening arguments, prosecutors displayed comments Arpaio made in news releases and during TV interviews in which he bragged about immigration enforcement, aiming to prove that he should be found guilty of misdemeanor con- tempt of court.
“He thought he could get away with it,” prosecutor Victor Salgado said, adding that at least 170 were illegally detained because Arpaio didn’t stop. “He never thought this day would come.”
His tactics drew fierce opponents as well as enthusiastic supporters nationwidewhochampioned what they considered a tough-on-crime approach, including forcing inmates to wear pink underwear and housing them in tents outside in the desert heat.
Arpaio spent nine of his 24 years in office doing the sort of local immigration enforcement that President Donald Trump has advocated.
His legal troubles played a major role in voters turning him out of office in November after a campaign in which he appeared alongside Trump at several rallies in Arizona.
The former six-term sheriff of metro Phoenix has acknowledged defying a judge’s 2011 order in a racial profiling lawsuit by prolonging the patrols for months. But he insists it was not intentional.