Facing Potential Justice Dept. Lawsuit, Arpaio Refuses to Back Down

==================================

=================================

August 4, 2010

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who rose to national fame with his highly publicized crackdowns on illegal immigrants, is standing his ground against the Justice Department, which is threatening to sue his office, arguing that he has refused to cooperate with a civil rights investigation and that he is not in compliance with federal law.

The Justice Department has been investigating Arpaio’s office in Phoenix since March 2009 for alleged discrimination and for unconstitutional searches and seizures. Arpaio says the inquiry is focused on his immigration efforts.

Robert Driscoll, a Washington lawyer representing Arpaio, told FoxNews.com that Arpaio has cooperated and accused the Justice Department of trying to make an example out of Arpaio as the Obama administration seeks to discourage states and local authorities from enforcing their own brand of immigration policy.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt,” Driscoll said when asked whether he believed the investigation is politically motivated. “It’s a media game.”

Driscoll added that if Arpaio was guilty of racial profiling, there would be evidence.

Could there be a police operation that is more transparent than Sheriff Arpaio’s office?” he said. “There are camera crews, reality shows following him as his deputies round up folks in sweeps. He announces them on TV three days before doing it.”

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment beyond the letter to Arpaio.

In the letter, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said the sheriff’s office is not turning over material that Perez’s lawyers are requesting. More than a year ago, Arpaio’s lawyers asked that the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility investigate alleged attorney misconduct regarding the investigation. In his letter to Arpaio’s lawyers, Perez said such “unfounded allegations” are not a basis for refusing to cooperate with the Justice Department probe.

In June, the office concluded that no civil rights division attorney at the Justice Department committed professional misconduct or exercised poor judgment in the probe of Arpaio’s office.

Perez gave the sheriff’s office until Aug. 17 to turn over documents first requested last year in what the department calls an inquiry into claims of discrimination based on national origin.

Arpaio and his legal counsel said a year ago that the sheriff’s office would not cooperate with the inquiry.

Continue reading here……

==============================

You probably know him as “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” a name given to him years ago by the media. It’s a name he certainly has earned as head of the nation’s third largest Sheriff’s Office which employs over 3000 people. But even before he became Sheriff in 1993, Joe Arpaio was one tough lawman. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1950 to 1953, and as a Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas, NV, police officer for almost five years, Arpaio went on to build a federal law enforcement career and a reputation for fighting crime and drug trafficking around the world.

He began his career as a federal narcotics agent, establishing a stellar record in infiltrating drug organizations from Turkey to the Middle East to Mexico, Central, and South America to cities around the U.S. His expertise and success led him to top management positions around the world with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He concluded his remarkable 32-year federal career as head of the DEA for Arizona.

In 1992 Arpaio successfully campaigned to become the Sheriff of Maricopa County. Since then he has been reelected to an unprecedented five 4-year terms. During his tenure as Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arpaio has consistently earned extraordinarily high public approval ratings.

Link

===================================

NOT RACIST.

NOT VIOLENT.

JUST NO LONGER SILENT.