Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio filed a libel lawsuit against The New York Times and a member of its editorial board Tuesday over an opinion piece lambasting his tough stance on immigration and law enforcement.
He was defeated by Republican Martha McSally. He is seeking $147.5 million in damages from the Times and Cottle.
In the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Arpaio, who called himself “America’s toughest sheriff,” claims the op-ed contains “several false, defamatory factual assertions.”
Arpaio said the article damaged his ability to secure funding from donors for a potential 2020 run for the late Sen. John McCain’s Senate seat currently being held by Sen. John Kyle and was “carefully and maliciously calculated to damage and injure” his reputation.
Cottle wrote that Arpaio’s 24-year tenure as sheriff was “medieval in its brutality.” She accused him of “racial profiling on a mass scale and terrorizing immigrant neighborhoods with gratuitous raids and traffic stops and detentions.”- READ MORE