Joe Arpaio Accused Of Ignoring Sex Abuse Cases

It turns out that Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been so busy harassing undocumented workers that he’s neglected to go after sexual predators, the type that assault little girls as young as three years-old – and he calls himself  “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” The information came to light in an Associated Press report, that highlights the cases of two 13 year-old girls who were assaulted in their own homes.

Both cases were among more than 400 sex-crimes reported to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office during a three-year period ending in 2007 — including dozens of alleged child molestations — that were inadequately investigated and in some instances were not worked at all, according to current and former police officers familiar with the cases.

So far, Arpaio has  has refused requests to comment about the lack of investigations in these cases, but after the AP’s insistence he made an investigator available to the press.

Brian Sands, a top sheriff’s official who is in charge of the potential discipline of any responsible employees, was later made available to talk about the cases. He declined to say why they weren’t investigated. “There are policy violations that have occurred here,” Sands said. “It’s obvious, but I can’t comment on who or what.”

So what are we talking about?

Most of the cases involve the community of El Mirage, that had law enforcement problems – understaffed and ill-managed – so Sheriff Joe was contracted to fill-in and bring order to the place.

After the contract ended and El Mirage was re-establishing its own police operation, the city spent a year sifting through layers of disturbingly incomplete casework.

El Mirage Detective Jerry Laird, who reviewed some the investigations, learned from a sheriff’s summary of 50 to 75 cases files he picked up from Arpaio’s office that an overwhelming majority of them hadn’t been worked.

That meant there were no follow-up reports, no collection of additional forensic evidence and zero effort made after the initial report of the crime was taken.

Sheriff Joe’s office was reportedly paid $2.7 million for police protection for 2 and 1/2 years between 2005 and mid-2007.

The majority of the cases involved undocumented immigrants.

In one of the cases highlighted in the AP report the 13 year-old victim had never been interviewed by Arpaio’s officers; in the other the case had never been “worked.” The only thing that officials tied to the case have said on the record is that the case is still under investigation by internal affairs officers.