PHOENIX — Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s criminal trial opened Monday over his defiance of the courts in traffic patrols that targeted illegal aliens, marking the most aggressive effort to hold the former lawman of metro Phoenix accountable for tactics that critics say racially profiled Hispanics.
In opening arguments, prosecutors displayed comments Arpaio made in news releases and during TV interviews in which he bragged about immigration enforcement, aiming to prove that he should be found guilty of misdemeanor contempt of court.
“He thought he could get away with it,” prosecutor Victor Salgado said, adding that at least 170 were illegally detained because Arpaio didn’t stop. “He never thought this day would come.”
Arpaio’s defense lawyer vigorously disputed that a person with nearly 60 years in law enforcement would violate a court order, putting the blame on a former attorney who gave bad legal advice.
Critics hope what’s expected to be an eight-day trial in federal court in Phoenix will bring a long-awaited comeuppance for the defiant 85-year-old who led crackdowns that divided immigrant families and, they say, escaped accountability.
His tactics drew fierce opponents as well as enthusiastic supporters nationwide who championed what they considered a tough-on-crime approach, including forcing inmates to wear pink underwear and housing them in tents outside in the desert heat.
Arpaio spent nine of his 24 years in office doing the sort of local immigration enforcement that President Donald Trump has advocated, using deputized local officers to enforce federal immigration law.
Arpaio’s lawyers say the former sheriff is charged with a crime for cooperating with U.S. immigration officials, which the Trump administration now encourages.
His legal troubles played a major role in voters turning him out of office in November after a campaign in which he appeared alongside Trump at several rallies in Arizona.
If convicted, Arpaio could face up to six months in jail.
The former six-term sheriff of metro Phoenix has acknowledged defying a judge’s 2011 order in a racial profiling lawsuit by prolonging the patrols for months. But he insists it was not intentional. To win a conviction, prosecutors must prove he violated the order on purpose.
His immigration powers were eventually stripped away by the courts and federal government, culminating with a judge ruling in 2013 that Arpaio’s officers racially profiled Hispanics.
Arpaio’s defense centers around what his attorneys said were weaknesses in the court order that failed to acknowledge times when deputies would detain immigrants and later hand them over to federal authorities.