Taxpayers will wind up paying over quarter billion dollars in Joe Arpaio's racial profiling case
The taxpayer bill for the racial profiling case stemming from former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration crackdowns will reach $273 million by the summer of 2024
PHOENIX (AP) — Taxpayers in metro Phoenix are approaching a milestone in their financial pain from a 2013 racial profiling verdict over former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration crackdowns: In roughly a year, those ongoing costs will exceed a quarter of a billion dollars.
The bill is projected to reach $273 million by the summer of 2024, officials were told Monday before they approved a tentative budget that included $38 million in legal and compliance spending for the racial profiling lawsuit during the coming fiscal year.
A decade ago, a federal judge concluded the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office had profiled Latinos in Arpaio’s signature traffic patrols that targeted immigrants, leading to massive court-ordered overhauls of both the agency’s traffic operations and its internal affairs department.
Under Arpaio, who was voted out as sheriff in 2016, the internal affairs operation was heavily criticized for biased decision-making. It now suffers from a crushing backlog of more than 1,900 internal affairs investigations under Arpaio’s successor, Sheriff Paul Penzone.
