* Arpaio: ‘I said all along I would be cleared in this case’
* Civil rights investigation of sheriff continues
* Second Arizona sheriff, accused by ex-lover, cleared of
wrongdoing
(Recasting; adds background, details on Babeu case)
By Tim Gaynor
PHOENIX, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Two tough-on-immigration Arizona
sheriffs with national profiles in the Republican Party were
cleared of criminal wrongdoing on Friday in unrelated probes,
though one remains accused of racial profiling and other abuses
in a pair of federal lawsuits.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona said it had closed its
criminal investigation of alleged financial misconduct by
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, self-described as “America’s
toughest sheriff”, and was declining to bring charges.
But a separate U.S. Justice Department investigation and
lawsuit relating to alleged civil rights abuses by Arpaio’s
office, including accusations of widespread racial profiling in
his immigration enforcement, is continuing, federal prosecutors
said.
And a federal judge is expected to rule soon in a similar
suit brought against Arpaio, this one a class-action case by
five Hispanic citizens who claimed they were stopped by the
sheriff’s deputies because of their ethnicity.
Earlier on Friday, another Arizona lawman with national ties
to the Republican Party and a reputation for cracking down on
illegal border crossings, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, was
cleared of criminal charges by the state attorney general’s
office.
Babeu resigned as co-chair of Republican presidential
nominee Mitt Romney’s state campaign after allegations he
threatened a male lover with deportation but asked for the state
investigation of his conduct to clear his name.
Babeu acknowledged at the time he was gay and had a personal
relationship with his accuser, Jose Orozco, who was reported to
be from Mexico, but denied that he had made any threat to deport
him.
“The Attorney General’s Office will not file charges against
either Babeu or Orozco,” Solicitor General Dave Cole said in a
statement.
“The investigation determined that Babeu did not commit any
criminal violations and further concluded that, although Orozco
conducted himself in a manner that may constitute a violation of
the law, there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction or
anything more than a misdemeanor charge,” Cole added.
Babeu said in a statement that “the truth had won out in the
end”, and that he had been fully exonerated.
The decision on the Arpaio case marked the end of an
investigation that began in November 2010 at the behest of the
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to examine alleged
financial improprieties by the county sheriff and his deputies.
A criminal inquiry into several of those matters was
concluded last summer with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona
declining to initiate charges.
‘MY PEOPLE ARE NOT CROOKS’
Maricopa County authorities were informed on Friday that
federal prosecutors had likewise declined to bring charges in
connection with two remaining allegations against the sheriff’s
office – that it had misused county credit cards and misspent
jail-enhancement excise taxes.
In addition, the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to
prosecute two former officials of the county attorney’s office
who were accused of wrongfully prosecuting a local judge.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Birmingham Scheel said in a
statement that her office “is closing its investigation into
allegations of criminal conduct by current and former members of
the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the Maricopa County
Attorney’s Office”.
In a four-page letter to the county attorney elaborating on
her decision, Scheel wrote: “After careful review, we do not
believe the allegations presented to us are prosecutable as
crimes.”
Arpaio said he learned the case was dropped on his return to
Arizona from the Republican National Convention in Florida.
“I said all along I would be cleared in this case,” Arpaio,
looking tired, told reporters gathered at his office in downtown
Phoenix late Friday. “If I did something wrong, there would be
indictments floating around all over the place.”
He added: “My people are not crooks. They are trying to do
their job.”
Arpaio, 80, who is seeking re-election to a sixth term as
sheriff in November, has ignited controversy over his aggressive
enforcement of immigration laws and his politically charged, and
fruitless, pursuit of evidence questioning the validity of
President Barack Obama’s U.S. birth certificate.
He has been under a federal investigation since 2008 over
allegations that he and his deputies engaged in an extensive
pattern of civil rights abuses. That probe led the Justice
Department to file a lawsuit in May accusing the sheriff and his
office of racial profiling and unlawful arrests of Latinos in a
bid to crack down on illegal immigration.
The civil suit also accused Arpaio’s office of routinely
violating the constitutional free-speech rights of political
opponents by retaliating against them through unsubstantiated
legal action, including unlawful arrests.
A separate lawsuit accusing Arpaio and his deputies of
racial profiling went to trial earlier this summer, with the
sheriff denying under oath that his office ever arrested people
“because of the color of their skin”.
(Writing by Steve Gorman; editing by Peter Cooney, Mohammad
Zargham and Pravin Char)
