PHOENIX (AP) — Taxpayers already on the hook for $54 million in a racial profiling case against the longtime sheriff of metro Phoenix are about to get walloped with another worrisome cost.
Hundreds of Latinos will be able to seek money from the government for being illegally detained when Sheriff Joe Arpaio disobeyed a judge’s order to stop his immigration patrols.
A judge concluded two weeks ago that Arpaio knowingly ignored the 2011 order because he believed continuing his immigration efforts would help his 2012 re-election campaign.
The judge says hundreds of Latinos were harmed by the sheriff’s defiance.
But the difficulties of finding victims might keep down the costs to taxpayers.
Some victims are immigrants who have returned to their home countries or moved elsewhere in the United States.
