Southwest
Arpaio verdict reportedly costing taxpayers some $314 million
Seven years after Joe Arpaio was ousted as sheriff of Arizona’s most populous county, taxpayers are still footing the bills from a racial profiling verdict over his signature immigration crackdowns – and those costs have been getting heavier since.
The tab for the legal and compliance costs in overhauling the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is expected to reach $314 million by mid-summer 2025, including $41 million approved Monday by county officials — the most expensive for Maricopa County taxpayers since the lawsuit was filed in 2007.
Nearly 11 years ago, a federal judge concluded sheriff’s deputies had racially profiled Hispanics in Arpaio’s traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. Consequently, the judge ordered costly overhauls of the agency’s traffic patrol operations and, later, its internal affairs unit.
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The taxpayer spending is expected to continue until the sheriff’s office attains full compliance with the court-ordered changes for three straight years. Though progress has been made on some fronts, the agency hasn’t yet been deemed fully compliant.
The money being spent on turning around the sheriff’s office looms large in law enforcement and political circles in Arizona.
Earlier this year, the heavy compliance costs were cited by critics who said the city of Phoenix should resist entering a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department, which is investigating the city’s police department. In recent weeks, the financial toll was brought up by immigrant rights advocates as they criticized a proposed ballot measure before the Arizona Legislature that would draw local police into immigration enforcement.
Raul Piña, a longtime member of a community advisory board created to help improve trust in the sheriff’s office, has criticized the efforts by Arpaio and his immediate successor, Sheriff Paul Penzone, to comply with the court-ordered changes.
FILE – In this Aug. 26, 2019, file photo, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio poses at his private office in Fountain Hills, Ariz. On Monday, May 20, 2024, county officials said legal and compliance costs in a racial profiling lawsuit over Arpaio’s immigration crackdowns are expected to reach $314 million by mid-summer of 2025. In 2013, a federal judge concluded the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office had profiled Latinos in Arpaio’s signature traffic patrols that targeted immigrants, leading to massive court-ordered overhauls of both the agency’s traffic operations and its internal affairs department. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
But Piña said the agency might finally be turning the corner under the leadership of Penzone’s replacement, Sheriff Russ Skinner. While pointing out his comments shouldn’t be considered an endorsement of Skinner, Piña said he was impressed when seeing the current sheriff squarely acknowledge the agency’s failures at a community meeting.
“For the first time that I’ve been involved, the sheriff finally said, ‘We own this, we have to fix this,’” said Piña.
Skinner’s office didn’t respond Monday to a request for comment.
The overwhelming majority of the spending goes toward hiring employees to help meet the court’s requirements and a separate staff working on the court’s behalf to monitor the sheriff office’s compliance with both overhauls.
Arpaio led 20 of the large-scale patrols targeting immigrants from January 2008 through October 2011. Under Arpaio’s leadership, the agency continued immigration enforcement in smaller, more routine traffic patrols until spring 2013.
That led to Arpaio’s conviction for criminal contempt of court for disobeying a judge’s 2011 order to stop the patrols. He was spared a possible jail sentence when his misdemeanor conviction was pardoned by then-President Donald Trump in 2017.
Arpaio, who turns 92 next month and is running for mayor of the affluent suburb where he has long resided, said he has no regrets about launching immigration crackdowns.
He blamed the judge’s ruling for the ongoing taxpayer costs and said Arizona’s 2005 immigrant smuggling ban gave him authority to conduct the patrols. “I did what I was supposed to do,” Arpaio said.
Around the time that the anti-smuggling law was passed, advocates for tougher immigration enforcement said cracking down on the problem would help reduce the financial losses that Arizona suffers from its porous border with Mexico.
In an interview Wednesday, Arpaio dodged a question about whether compliance costs from the profiling case would exceed any savings that the public might have gained from such enforcement efforts. Instead, he focused on the influx of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years.
“And you’re complaining about me – that I cost taxpayers money?” Arpaio said. “Start adding up what’s going on today.”
Traffic-stop studies conducted since the profiling verdict show deputies often treat drivers who are Hispanic and Black differently than other drivers, though the reports stop short of saying Latinos were still being profiled.
While the profiling case focused on the agency’s traffic patrols, the judge presiding over the lawsuit later ordered changes to the sheriff’s internal affairs operation, which critics alleged was biased in its decision-making under Arpaio and shielded sheriff’s officials from accountability.
Penzone, who served as sheriff from 2017 until his resignation effective in January, was found in civil contempt of court in November 2022 for taking too long to close internal affairs investigations. The internal affairs unit has faced criticism for having a crushing backlog of open cases. Over the last year, the backlog has been reduced from about 1,900 to 1,600 cases.
The agency’s compliance percentages are near or at 100% on two of the three court orders issued in the case. But its scores on the third court order, issued in November 2022, are more modest.
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The family of Brianna Aguilera, the Texas A&M student who fell to her death from a high-rise apartment in November, is suing two organizations for allegedly overserving alcohol ahead of the 19-year-old’s death.
Attorney Tony Buzbee on Tuesday announced a $1 million wrongful death lawsuit was filed in Travis County against the Austin Blacks Rugby Club and the UT Economics and Business Association.
“It is illegal to serve minors any amount of alcohol in the State of Texas. It is reckless and irresponsible to grossly over-serve a group of minors at a University of Texas football tailgate to the point where those minors lose their physical faculties and ability to control themselves,” the lawsuit states.
Aguilera died when she fell from an Austin high-rise apartment following a Texas A&M vs. University of Texas football tailgate at around 1 a.m. Nov. 29, according to police.
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An image provided by the family of the young Texas A&M student, Brianna Aguilera, found dead in Austin over the weekend. (GoFundMe)
A police investigation later determined Aguilera died by suicide despite her family’s claims that she was killed.
Brianna Aguilera was found dead in an apartment hours after attending a tailgate party. (Facebook/Brie Aguilera)
According to the filing, the alleged “egregious over-serving of minors” led to Aguilera’s death. Witnesses described her behavior over several hours as “shifting from upbeat to disoriented and ultimately grossly intoxicated,” the suit says.
Brianna Aguilera holds a sign congratulating her on her acceptance to Texas A&M. (Instagram/brie.aguilera)
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Buzbee said the lawsuit is also intended to support the ongoing investigation into the events of that night by allowing the firm to seek phone and text records, documents and data and to compel witness testimony.
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The lawsuit requests a jury trial.
Fox News Digital’s Julia Bonavita contributed to this report.
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Nobody handles oil quite like Texas and a fresh supply of Venezuelan crude could soon be headed to the Lone Star State’s coast.
The first barrels of thick, tar-like crude could arrive as soon as next week at ports across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, where dense clusters of refineries are built and bred to process heavy oil.
The development follows President Donald Trump’s Tuesday evening announcement that Caracas will transfer up to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., worth about $2.8 billion at current market prices.
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Venezuelan children swimming near an oil tanker docked at a pier near the refinery of the state oil company PDVSA. (Jesus Vargas/picture alliance/Getty Images)
“The Gulf Coast concentrates most of our refining capacity, and those refineries were built or revamped over the years to process extra-heavy crude similar to what is produced in Venezuela,” explained Jaime Brito, executive director of refining and oil products at OPIS.
“From a market perspective, additional volumes of extra-heavy crude entering the U.S. refining system would be an extraordinarily positive development,” Brito said. “It would allow refiners to operate more efficiently, something they haven’t been able to do for years and could help keep gasoline and diesel prices at better levels because refiners would have access to cheaper crude and more optimal operations.”
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He added that tankers could arrive within five to six days if they leave Venezuelan waters on Thursday.
Because Gulf Coast refineries supply a large share of the nation’s fuel, shifts in how efficiently they operate can ultimately ripple through to prices paid by U.S. consumers.
Texas oil refineries are poised to benefit from additional crude oil supplies. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The arrival of 15 to 25 oil tankers carrying up to 50 million barrels of crude is only a fraction of what Venezuela could ultimately supply.
With more than 300 billion barrels of proven reserves, it holds the world’s largest oil endowment — eclipsing long-standing energy heavyweights like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait.
Despite its vast reserves, U.S. sanctions have effectively blocked most Venezuelan crude from reaching the U.S. Gulf Coast, leaving Chevron — operating under a special authorization — as the sole exporter of limited volumes.
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A Chevron Corp. flag flies on the drilling floor of a Nabors Industries Ltd. drill rig in the Permian Basin near Midland, Texas, on March 1, 2018. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
That disruption has been felt most acutely in Texas, which anchors the nation’s refining hub and hosts several of the country’s largest heavy-crude refineries.
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A renewed flow of Venezuelan barrels could also intensify competition in the heavy-crude market, particularly between Venezuela and Canada, Brito said.
“You’re going to have fierce competition between Canada and Venezuela, which benefits American refiners and gives them more flexibility to potentially lower fuel prices,” he said, adding that he was speaking strictly from an oil-market perspective.
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A security guard was fatally shot outside a Houston restaurant Wednesday evening after a confrontation with another man, authorities said.
The shooting happened around 6:15 p.m. outside Connie’s Seafood Market Restaurant, the Houston Police Department said.
Police told reporters that the security guard, who was working for the restaurant, was standing in the parking lot when a fight broke out between him and another man, FOX26 Houston reported.
Police said the security guard was shot at least once. He was rushed to a hospital where he later died.
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A security guard was fatally shot outside a Houston restaurant Wednesday evening after a confrontation with another man, authorities said. (Houston Police Department)
Authorities did not immediately release the name of the victim.
The suspect was last seen running away from the parking lot after the shooting.
The security guard was working for the restaurant at the time of the shooting. (Google Maps)
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No details about the suspect or the circumstances that led to the altercation have been released as of Thursday morning.
Houston police were reviewing surveillance footage as they search for the shooting suspect. (Mayra Beltran/Houston Chronicle, File)
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Officials said investigators were reviewing surveillance footage and speaking with witnesses to get a description of the suspect.
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