The Joe Arpaio case continues to be a sickening sideshow to this year’s elections, and it’s a sideshow that’s costing taxpayers heavily. According to The Arizona Republic, via Raw Story, the attorneys who proved that Arpaio’s office was using racial profiling are asking for $5.9 million in legal fees, with Maricopa County taxpayers footing the bill.
These fees are on top of the $4.5 million that Maricopa County has already paid to the lawyers. The total cost for the case has now reached a staggering $51 million for proving in court something well known for some time.
These costs are almost pocket change compared to how much Arpaio has cost the state over the years – $142 million in total. What’s more, the racist Sheriff Arpaio, who earns $100,000 per year, isn’t even paying his own defense fees. Instead, he’s asking for donations.
The case was called after Arpaio ignored an order by federal judge Murray Snow to end patrols that used racial profiling to target Latinos. Bizarre facts have been spilling out of his days in court, painting Arpaio as vindictive and paranoid. Last April he admitted spying on Snow’s wife, hiring private investigators to investigate alleged rumors of judicial impropriety. His fear was that the judge had conspired to prevent his reelection in 2016.
Then, in May, Arpaio, a supposed lawman, had to be forced into cooperating with the investigation, with Snow ordering the seizure of hard drives and documents important to the case, which Arpaio had allegedly been planning to destroy. The rich seam of corruption inside the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was thrown into the light even more recently, with the Associated Press reporting that the court had found their internal investigation strewn with biases.
The investigation by Internal Affairs had been twisted into keeping officers out of any culpability.
When the results of the investigation into racial profiling were released, Arpaio described it as “a sad day for America as a whole. He added “Don’t come here and use me as a whipping boy for a national and international problem. We are proud of the work we have done to fight illegal immigration.”
Such vindictiveness shouldn’t be a surprise coming from Joe Arpaio, a man whose time as a political figure is a rich tapestry of mismanagement and racial hatred. While his office used money intended for prison equipment on stays at luxury hotels and trips to the tropics, inmates boiled in Tent City under the blazing Arizona sun.
Sheriff Joe has consistently misused and abused his power. While the lawyers may be milking the costs, legal trouble is the least he deserves. It could get even better, however. According to Raw Story, Arpaio could soon be facing possible jail time, if Snow decides to press criminal charges. Maybe he can spend it in a tent.
Featured Image by Gage Skidmore Via Flickr/CC by SA-2.0
