What a piece of shit. No wonder Trump looks up to him, a trailblazer in shamelessness with the media.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news...winds-up-costing-taxpayers-11-million-6629798
In 1999, Arpaio's staff rigged the entire fake assassination plot – just
so he could get his mug on TV.
News cameras were already rolling when deputies arrested Saville. Gullible TV reporters gobbled up Arpaio’s story about a local Unabomber who was plotting to kill America’s “toughest” sheriff.
In 2004, a jury found Saville innocent of all charges. Not only that, but it ruled that Arpaio’s minions helped buy the bomb parts themselves and “entrapped” Saville in a TV-ready murder plot.
Arpaio was re-elected just months after the jury verdict. (Journalists
John Dougherty and
Janna Bommersbach unraveled the tale in separate articles).
“Jurors listened in disbelief as testimony showed it was the sheriff’s money that purchased the bomb parts, and an undercover officer who drove Saville around to buy the parts,” Bommersbach wrote.
Records show that the final payment to Saville went out on August 28, 2008. The total $1.1 million that taxpayers spent to settle with him doesn't include money that the county attorney spent prosecuting him, or funds paid to deputies who worked long hours to frame him.
This sort of reads like fake news from a lefty rag. Any sources and/or case document links?
October 2007,
Maricopa County sheriff's deputies arrested Lacey and Larkin on charges of revealing secret
grand jury information concerning the investigations of the
New Times's long-running feud with Maricopa County
sheriff Joe Arpaio. In July 2004, the
New Timespublished Arpaio's home address in the context of a story about his real estate dealings, which the County Attorney's office was investigating as a possible crime under Arizona state law. A special prosecutor served Village Voice Media with a subpoena ordering it to produce "all documents" related to the original real estate article, as well as "all Internet web site traffic information" to a number of articles that mentioned Arpaio. The prosecutor further ordered Village Voice Media to produce the
IP addresses of all visitors to the
Phoenix New Times website since January 1, 2004, as well as which websites those readers had been to prior to visiting. As an act of "
civil disobedience",
[3] Lacey and Larkin published the contents of the subpoena on or about October 18, which resulted in their arrests the same day.
[4] On the following day, the county attorney dropped the case after declining to pursue charges against the two.
[5]
The special prosecutor's subpoena included a demand for the names of all people who had read the Arpaio story on the newspaper's website. It was the revealing of the subpoena information by the
New Times which led to the arrests.
[6] Maricopa County Attorney
Andrew Thomas dropped the charges less than 24 hours after the two were arrested.
[7]
In the weeks following the arrests, members of the
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, of which the
Phoenix New Times is a member, provided links on their websites to places where Arpaio's address could be found.
[8] This was done to show solidarity with the
Phoenix New Times.
In February 2008, the paper filed a formal notice of claim, which is required by Arizona law before suing government officials.
[9][10]
In December 2013, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors agreed to pay
Phoenix New Times founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin $3.75 million to settle their false arrest lawsuit against the county defendants.
[11]