Feds Sue 'Toughest Sheriff'; He Comes Out Swinging

(Sept. 2) – The federal government today sued Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, the self-styled toughest sheriff in America, for failing to cooperate with an investigation into allegations that his department discriminated against prisoners with limited English-language skills.

Arpaio didn't respond quietly to the Obama administration's charges.

"These actions make it abundantly clear that Arizona, including this sheriff, IS Washington's new whipping boy," he said in a statement released this afternoon. "Now it's time to take the gloves off. ... It's time Americans everywhere wake up and see this administration for what it really is. Calculating, underhanded at times and certainly not looking out for the best interests of the legal citizens residing in this country."

The suit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice contends that Arpaio and his staff in Maricopa County refused to hand over information relating to an alleged "pattern or practice of discriminatory law enforcement conduct." It is illegal for any program receiving federal funds to practice discrimination.
The feds had been trying to gain access to the information, and to law enforcement personnel, since March 2009, the complaint says.

"The actions of the sheriff's office are unprecedented. It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities," Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

Arpaio responded by saying that the federal government was disingenuous and trying to cover up the fact that it had no evidence of discrimination by the sheriff or his office.

"The Obama administration intended to sue us all along, no matter what we did to try to avert it," Arpaio said. "They smiled in our faces and then stabbed us in the back with this lawsuit."

The complaint is the latest salvo in a battle between the federal government and Arizona over immigration. In July, the feds sued the state over its controversial new immigration law, which required police to inquire into the immigration status of people they detain.

The feds said this was taking on powers that belonged to the federal government. Later in July, a judge blocked key portions of the law.

Arizona. Gov. Jan Brewer said the decision gave the federal government "relief from the courts to not do their job."

Robert Driscoll, Arpaio's attorney, said the federal government had been promised cooperation as recently as last week.

"We were awaiting a response from DOJ, and this lawsuit is apparently it," Driscoll said in a statement. "This lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to obscure the fact that DOJ still has no case."

Today's lawsuit, which is filed against Arpaio, the Maricopa Sheriff's Office and Maricopa County, refers specifically to the treatment of people with limited English-language skills in the county's jails. It has been widely reported that Arpaio is conducting crime sweeps through Latino neighborhoods, where arrested individuals have been asked about their immigration status. Critics say this amounts to racial profiling.

"America's toughest sheriff" has become an icon of the movement calling for tougher immigration enforcement along the U.S. southern border. His hard-nosed stand on law enforcement and regular media appearances have made him a household name.

But the Department of Justice suit could end up costing the region millions of dollars in federal funding -- some of which goes directly to the sheriff's office.

The complaint says that taking these funds obliged the agencies, and Arpaio personally, to cooperate with the federal government's requests for information. If they continue their stance of refusing to hand over documents, that funding could be cut off.

The sheriff's office "signed contractual assurance agreements as a condition of receiving federal funds, and promised that it would cooperate with investigations of alleged discrimination," the government said in a statement.

The suit asks the court to declare that the defendants breached the law by refusing to cooperate with the investigation, and to compel them to do so.

"Defendants' refusal to cooperate with reasonable requests for information regarding the use of federal funds is a violation of defendants' statutory, regulatory and contractual obligations," the complaint says.