Millions Were Misspent by Arizona Sheriff’s Office Facing Federal Lawsuit, Officials Say
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio speaks with a reporter outside his famous tent city jail for misdemeanor offenses on May 3, 2010. (Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)
The office of the Arizona sheriff who was sued by the Justice Department earlier this month was this week accused by Maricopa County budget officials of misspending millions in taxpayer dollars over five years, according to The Arizona Republic.
The office of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is famous for his hard line on immigration as well as his controversial tactics, misspent between $60 million and $80 million in funds, according to county officials.
Money from a voter-approved tax restricted for use on jails, for instance, was spent on salaries for deputies and put to other unintended purposes.
Even the Sheriff’s Office isn’t sure how much money from this fund was improperly spent, the sheriff’s interim chief deputy, Jerry Sheridan, told the Republic, but he called the county’s $80 million figure “pure hyperbole” and “a vicious attempt to make Sheriff Arpaio look like he’s a poor manager.” More from the Republic:
As legal, political and administrative disputes have embroiled the nation's fourth-most-populous county in recent years, county officials said the Sheriff's Office refused to let auditors examine their books on a number of matters.
[Deputy County Manager Sandi] Wilson maintained her office's estimates of misspending are accurate, but said county officials need additional records from the Sheriff's Office to pin down an exact figure.
Over the years the sheriff’s officials also charged to county-issued credit cards thousands of dollars’ worth of expensive food, stays at luxury hotels and other amenities — though such charges have fallen since the county imposed stricter rules on use of the credit cards, officials noted.
Feuding between the Sheriff’s Office and the Maricopa County administrators and supervisors has gone on for years. Legal expenses and disputes over access to the office’s financial records have added up to millions in costs to taxpayers, the Republic reported.
Last week, an internal memo written by a 30-year department veteran accused top officials in the sheriff’s department of using an anti-corruption unit to conduct politically motivated investigations. Arpaio has said that his department’s anti-corruption investigations were legitimate, reported the Los Angeles Times, and has argued that investigations into his own office are politically motivated.
The Republic said the information on the misspent funds was being forwarded to the U.S. Attorney's Office for review.
The Justice Department, as we’ve noted, had filed a lawsuit against Arpaio, his office and the county earlier this month for refusing to fully cooperate with a civil rights investigation into allegations that the Sheriff’s Office had discriminated against Hispanics in its police practices and jail operations. Arpaio, in a statement at the time, said that the suit made it “abundantly clear that Arizona, including this sheriff, is Washington’s new whipping boy.”
This week, a federal audit by the U.S. Marshals Service found Maricopa County jails were “compliant” in cleanliness and other areas, including “prevention of discrimination against detainees,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Arpaio’s lawyer has said the rating bolsters his client’s argument that the Justice Department’s probe is politically motivated, but the Justice Department said in a statement that its areas of investigation were not covered by the Marshals Service audit.
Neither street-level police enforcement nor services for non-English speakers in jails — both issues central to the federal investigation — were central to the Marshals Service audit, according to the Republic.
Get Updates
Our Hottest Stories
- Donations to Scott Walker Flagged as Potential Fraud
- In Race For Better Cell Service, Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives
- Billion Dollar Bait & Switch: States Divert Foreclosure Deal Funds
- Pardon Attorney Torpedoes Plea for Presidential Mercy
- Patient Died at New York VA Hospital After Alarm Was Ignored
- Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory and Justice in Guatemala
- Introducing the ProPublica Patient Harm Community on Facebook
- Built for a Simpler Era, OSHA Struggles When Tower Climbers Die
- Got Student Loans? Share Your Documents With Us
- Remember Stuxnet? Why the U.S. is Still Vulnerable
- Donations to Scott Walker Flagged as Potential Fraud
- Pardon Attorney Torpedoes Plea for Presidential Mercy
- In Race For Better Cell Service, Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives
- Air Force Pilots Balk at Flying the World’s Most Expensive Fighter Jet
- Watchdog Group Calls for Probe of Lobbyists Behind Congressional Trip to Taiwan
- Patient Died at New York VA Hospital After Alarm Was Ignored
- Billion Dollar Bait & Switch: States Divert Foreclosure Deal Funds
- Broadcasters Sue to...Block Transparency
- Happy Graduation! Here's The Best, Most Depressing Journalism on Student Debt
- Remember Stuxnet? Why the U.S. is Still Vulnerable
15 comments
Socks
Sept. 24, 2010, 9:42 p.m.
Gee, I wonder whose paying for Arpaio’s lawyer.
Christy
Sept. 25, 2010, 10:15 a.m.
Nothing like sending the far-left media, aka Propublica, to report on a conservative sheriff. Believable, I think not. Just pursuing the agenda of their financial backers.
IvanDurakov
Sept. 25, 2010, 10:48 a.m.
Saul Alinsky rule number 17 I believe: isolate, denigrate. Good fascist image-creation philosophy when substance is not enough.
Jim Meeker
Sept. 25, 2010, 10:49 a.m.
Christy
You didn’t read this article… did you?
Rusty Boersma
Sept. 26, 2010, 12:16 a.m.
Good! Time for Joe to wear some pink panties! What a Nazi! He is a disgrace to law enforcement. As well as the human race.
M Helminen
Sept. 26, 2010, 10:22 a.m.
Jim,
Knowing how the Maricopa good ol’ boys network members cry like little children and blame everyone else when they get caught defrauding the state and the federal government, “Christy” is likely a sock puppet with an AZ IP address.
Mickey Smith
Sept. 27, 2010, 3:57 p.m.
Our federal gov is more corrupted than any other time in our nations history,they refused to enforce the laws,then blame the people who are doing the job they refuse to do. If you want to see waste & fraud,look at the obama admin,its very big & its our money,but the progessives could care less because they get the kick backs that fills their pockets to go along with obamas tyranny rules.
Phil
Sept. 27, 2010, 4:57 p.m.
I wonder where the fiscal watchdogs;the Tea Party, are now. If the Sheriff was using taxpayers dollars to live the high life in posh hotels and used money that the taxpayers approved for one specific purpose for other than what the people approved,then he is not following his oath of office and this has nothing to do with liberal or conservative positions but being honorable and adhering to ones oath of office. Quis costodet,ipsos costodiat!
KPage
Sept. 27, 2010, 5:03 p.m.
BWA HA HA! ! ! If this proves true, I hope he gets the justice he so richly deserves.
I’m curious ... why is it that nearly all Obama bashers have such a terrible time with basic spelling, grammar, and punctuation? It doesn’t seem to matter what website I’m on, the embittered right can’t write.
Andrea
Sept. 27, 2010, 7:18 p.m.
Personally, as a Maricopa resident, I feel more safe with Joe in office than a liberal, “do whatever you want” sheriff. He is doing a great job. So is Paul Babeu in Pinal County. If the Feds won’t help Arizonans at least our sheriffs depts. do!
Lyris
Sept. 27, 2010, 7:44 p.m.
Christy made a fool of herself. I bet she does that a lot.
As for Amanda, apparently she goes for crooks, and joe is a crook. But then Andrea probably has white skin, not brown. So what is breaking laws between whities?
Pastor Dave
Sept. 28, 2010, 12:04 a.m.
I’ll never say that stealing is right under any circumstances. But any improprieties in Sheriff Joe’s books will simply pale compared with what you have in Chicago and Washington.
If Sheriff Joe proves to be be a crook, he should be removed. But before that happens, let’s show the door to more than half the members of Congress and our ever-vacationing resident in the White House.
Bill
Sept. 28, 2010, 12:36 a.m.
As a long-time 81 year old Independent retired resident of Phoenix, I can certify that Arpaio is an absolute disgrace.
All one need do is look at the record of the millions of dollars paid in settlements to survivors of those who have died violently while in the tough guy’s charge.
The man is egomaniacal!
Dwayne
Sept. 28, 2010, 8:52 a.m.
If there is indeed fraud (not just *waste* but real fraud), then certainly he should be prosecuted; removed from office, and justly punished. You can’t deny, however, that the person who is serving multiple consecutive life sentences; or who has been sentenced for what would be the rest of their lives (the John Gotti types of the world) benefit little from a vast majority of rehabilitative efforts and are merely there to be warehoused. This, of course, doesn’t mean that we keep them bored and inactive; nor do we cease to provide them with the means to alter behavior and curb/cure addictions, or we cease spiritual efforts. However, more advanced rehabilitation efforts certainly are not justified.
Matt
Sept. 28, 2010, 1:26 p.m.
@ Andrea -
“Personally, as a Maricopa resident, I feel more safe with Joe in office than a liberal, “do whatever you want” sheriff. He is doing a great job. So is Paul Babeu in Pinal County. If the Feds won’t help Arizonans at least our sheriffs depts. do!”
Since you are so clearly versed in politics, you would know that “do whatever you want” is libertarian, not liberal. You know, libertarian… Tea Party? Palin? No? Ok, go read a paper and get caught up on the last couple of years.