Former Sheriff Arpaio sues New York Times
Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has sued the and one of its columnists, claiming a piece published the day after he lost in the Republican primary race for the U.S. Senate has damaged his chances of winning a seat in 2020.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in District Court in Washington, seeks $147.5 million in damages.
The lawsuit, which names the paper and opinion writer Michelle Cottle, alleges a column she wrote defamed him by presenting his record as sheriff in a “false light” and will hinder “prospective business relations,” specifically with the Republican National Committee.
Cottle is a member of the Editorial Board, but the column was published under her name.
Arpaio’s lawyer is Larry Klayman, a right-wing activist who has filed countless failed lawsuits against government officials. He has espoused numerous conspiracy theories, including “birther” claims advanced by Arpaio challenging President Barack Obama’s citizenship.
Klayman represented Arpaio in a lawsuit against Obama’s immigration policies that was dismissed in 2015.
The column, among other things, accused Arpaio of being “a sadist masquerading as a public servant” whose treatment of inmates at Maricopa County jails and immigration-enforcement tactics “often crossed the line into the not-so-legal.”
The lawsuit says Arpaio intends to run for U.S. Senate again in 2020, when the seat opened by Sen. John McCain’s death goes before Arizona voters. But the column now will hurt his chances of securing RNC and other funding, the lawsuit alleges.
Gov. Doug Ducey named Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., to temporarily fill the seat.
The article, under the headline “Well, at Least Sheriff Joe Isn’t Going to Congress,” was published by the on Aug. 29, a day after Arpaio lost in the Senate GOP primary to U.S. Rep. Martha McSally.
The lawsuit contends “while the Defamatory Article is strategically titled as an opinion piece, it contains several false, defamatory factual assertions concerning Plaintiff Arpaio.”
Arpaio claims statements made U.S. D.C., in Cottle’s piece falsely accuse him of a serious crime, knew the statements made in the article were false, and portrayed him in a false light.
The lawsuit cites multiple statements in the column that Arpaio claims were damaging, among them:
❚ “His 24-year reign of terror was medieval in its brutality. In addition to conducting racial profiling on a mass scale and terrorizing immigrant neighborhoods with gratuitous raids and traffic stops and detentions, he oversaw a jail where mistreatment of inmates was the stuff of legend. Abuses ranged from the humiliating to the lethal. He brought back chain gangs. He forced prisoners to wear pink underwear. He set up an outdoor “tent city,” which he once referred to as a “concentration camp,” to hold the overflow of prisoners. Inmates were beaten, fed rancid food, denied medical care (this included pregnant women) and, in at least one case, left battered on the floor to die.”
❚ “It was no secret that Mr. Arpaio’s methods often crossed the line into the not-so-legal.”
❚ “For nearly a quarter-century, Sheriff Joe Arpaio was a disgrace to law enforcement, a sadist masquerading as a public servant. In a just system, we would not see his like again.”
Arpaio alleges the “false factual assertions are carefully and maliciously calculated to damage and injure” him in the law-enforcement community and with the Republican establishment and donors.
Arpaio is claiming the article will prevent him from having a “successful” run for the U.S. Senate in 2020 or any public office as a Republican.
The lawsuit claims Cottle’s “malice and leftist enmity of Arpaio sought to destroy” his relationship with the RNC, the National Republican Senate Campaign Committee and other donors.
The lawsuit also claims the article has made Arpaio the “subject of widespread humiliation” leading to a “severe loss of reputation, which has in turn also caused him pain and financial damage.”
reached out to the for comment late Tuesday but did not immediately receive a response. A spokeswoman, Eileen Murphy, issued a statement to Politico earlier in the day that said: “We intend to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”