Feds. After Sheriff Arpaio
7/8/09 | Mike Sakal
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Washington attorney said Tuesday they will not cooperate with an ongoing Department of Justice investigation into the sheriff's office until the feds name specific charges and reveal what they are looking for.
Arpaio also said Tuesday during a heavily attended press conference in Phoenix he will not be intimidated nor back down in his methods of crime sweeps that have netted the arrests of 4,000 illegal immigrants in the last two and a half months.
Arpaio's office is accused of racial profiling during crime sweeps and is the target of a civil rights violations investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Arpaio has called the investigation "politically motivated."
Attorney Robert Driscoll, now representing Arpaio's office in the Department of Justice's investigation, was in Phoenix Tuesday to discuss the case. Driscoll formerly served as deputy assistant attorney general under Attorney General John Ashcroft between 2001 and 2003 and supervised the special litigation section of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.