The nearly $45 million total includes: $14.6 million spent over the last year and a half on changes at the agency to comply with court orders, an additional $23.8 million being set aside for covering even more court-ordered changes in the coming year as well as $6.8 million in fees for lawyers on both sides.
Two years ago, in his decision against the Sheriff in Melendres v Arpaio, US District Judge Murray Snow ordered him to stop his traffic and immigration patrol, ruling that they qualified as racial profiling that singled out Latinos.
That decision led to a series of costly changes to the agency in order to comply with court orders, including officer training on racial profiling, a computer system to detect misconduct, and body cameras for officers. A group of retired police officers are also being paid to monitor Arpaio for the court.
As for the increased spending on compliance in the coming year — much is due to the need to shift 24 positions within the sheriff's office to deal with the compliance issues themselves.
And those are just the known costs of the legal proceedings so far; another racial profiling trial may be coming up and Arpaio's office is still under court supervision.
Arpaio is currently undergoing a civil trial, since, after Snow's order two years ago, Arpaio and his deputies continued to carry out their immigrant-targeting patrols. Snow eventually got so frustrated at reports of Arpaio and his deputies continuing to harass Latino residents that he initiated contempt of court proceedings.
In contrast to the $45 million outlined above, any judgement against Arpaio and others in the civil trial would come from the officers themselves. It's thought that Arpaio has never paid out a fine from his own pocket though he did offer to pay $100,000 of his own money in an effort to get out of the current contempt of court proceedings.
The responsibility for civil judgements must be a relief to Maricopa County taxpayers who — entirely separate from the racial profiling proceedings — have already paid out $74 million in settlements, judgements and legal fees during Arpaio's 22 years in office.
Those previous payouts have included lawsuits over the deaths of inmates in his custody or over his practice of hiring investigators to dig up dirt on his political enemies. Arpaio recently dropped a bombshell in his civil trial by revealing he had hired private investigators to look into Judge Snow's wife.
— Dan Nowicki (@dannowicki) April 24, 2015
Judge Snow has noted that Arpaio's office is only 29% compliant with his orders so far, and he's threatened to open a second trial relating to more racial profiling allegations.
The end to Sheriff Joe's costly legal troubles is no where in sight.
"We have no idea what it's going to cost the taxpayers," County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, told the Associated Press, noting that the money would be better spent on public infrastructure or unfunded projects.
