How tough exactly is America’s toughest sheriff? The country is about to find out. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been slammed by a set of damning reports in the last week that allege the Arizona sheriff misused $80 million in taxpayer money. The report, released on Wednesday, prompted the Board of Supervisors to place the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office under budget restrictions. Maricopa County Board attorney Tom Irvine called the findings the “biggest misspending of state funds in the history of Arizona.”
Last week one of Arpaio’s own deputy chiefs released a 63-page memo charging Arpaio with allowing MCSO’s corruption and abuse to infect the entire department.
Both reports have been directed to local and federal authorities for further investigation, and the typically chatty Arpaio’s stayed mum, letting county spokespeople do the talking for him.
“The $80 million figure, I think, is pure hyperbole, and I thought it was a vicious attempt to make Sheriff Arpaio look like he’s a poor manager,” Interim chief deputy Jerry Sheridan told the Arizona Republic.
The Maricopa County Office of Management and Budget combed through years of financial reports and found that Arpaio had been maintaining a shadow records system to hide the fact that his department was spending millions from a taxpayer-fund public-corruption probes of Arpaio’s critics and immigration sweeps. The voter-approved jail fund was set up in 1998 for guard salaries and jail expansion, but had been squandered on unrelated expenses. New America Media reports that the county board found other unexplained expenses, including money spent on hotels and meals and trips abroad, including a stay at the Disneyland Yacht Club Resort.
Read more at colorlines.com
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