‘America’s Toughest Sheriff’ Joe Arpaio faces smackdown for contempt of court … if judge convicts him

‘America’s Toughest Sheriff’ Joe Arpaio faces smackdown for contempt of court … if judge convicts him

Arpaio is accused of ignoring an order to halt his controversial illegal immigration sweeps in Arizona.

A four-day hearing begins Tuesday that will determine whether or not the sheriff for metro Phoenix in Arizona should face fines and other sanctions for violations of a judge’s orders in a case accusing him of racial profiling.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has declared himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff” and has built a reputation for being a showman who is not afraid to be especially hard on criminals — and a less-than-savory image as a sheriff who skirts the line when it comes to targeting hispanics to fight illegal immigration in controversial “sweeps.” Arpaio has acknowledged that he disobeyed a judge’s pretrial order that barred him from conducting his infamous immigration enforcement patrols, and accepted responsibility for failing to turn over traffic-stop videos, according to an Associated Press report.

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow will be sitting on the bench for the contempt hearing, as Arpaio and four aides are accused of failing to inform officers about the injunction, allowing them to continue unabated in their actions for a full year and a half. Although Arpaio acknowledges he violated the order, he is hoping to get off by publicly apologizing and donating to a civil rights organization.

Snow said the donation, in the amount of $100,000, would be adequate on the financial side, it doesn’t resolve the contempt case and therefore it would go forward.

Michael Manning, an attorney who has sued over Arpaio’s jails and one more than $20 million in those cases, complained that the sheriff has “flouted the law so notoriously over 20 years” and yet continues to win elections.

Besides his controversial anti-immigration sweeps, Arpaio has endured ridicule due to his recent public campaign to investigate the birth certificate of President Barack Obama, joining the fringe “birther” movement that holds that he was secretly born in Kenya rather than Hawaii, his actual birthplace.

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