Maricopa Sheriff Arpaio’s 500K Paranoiac Episode

Ran across a great local perspective on Joe Arpaio’s six month long $500,000 investigation of an alleged plot against his life by immigration activists on P.S. Burton’s blog:

Secret Informant initiates $500,000 In Public Expenditures:

Maricopa County Sheriff’ Joseph Arpaio spent an estimated $500,000
in tax payer dollars this past six months defending himself from an
imagined assassination plot that he worried would incite a National
furor over illegal immigration.

The imagined plot, according to a paid informant, involved the
Minutemen hiring a Mexican drug cartels hit squad and a
immigrant-rights advocate acting as middleman. Sheriff’s officials now
admit none of the paid sources information seems to have turned out
true. According to the informant, Mexican Nationals would be blamed for
the assassination, carried out by Los Zetas, an enforcement arm of a
smuggling organizations made up of former Mexican police and soldiers.

The informant, claiming to play the role of translator in the plot
said he witnessed a down payment of $1.5 million for the hit on Arpaio.
88 sheriff employees were tasked to the investigation for about 16,720
hours on the clock including $82,000 in credit-card bills. The case
details and expenditure reports, obtained by a public-records request.

The grand motive, as related by the paid informant, was to incite
Americans about illegal immigration and a Nation in mourning for the
loss of its beloved Sheriff Arpaio would demand congress empower the
Minutemen militia to defend the United States border. Arpaio still
claims there was good reason to believe the plot was real.

To date no formal request for a presidential level secret service
detail has been made. Though the sheriff evidently considers himself a
National leader who’s killing would cast the country into Kennedy like
mourning.

The alleged plot was to be carried out Easter weekend. According to
deputy Larry Black who admitted to the Arizona republic the informer
provided only two pieces of intelligence that were provable: “He knew
how long it takes Arpaio to walk from his downtown Phoenix office to
his parking garage”, and “he knew the sheriff recently had dined at a
particular Mexican restaurant” in north Scottsdale.

Black head of the sheriffs super double top secret special
investigations unit said investigators had to take the threat seriously
when they heard those facts. “The honest truth was he was
believable.”Asked if any of the investigation verified any factual
leads, Black said, “No, it didn’t. Black conceded he no longer believes
an assassination plot was planned.

The plot is detailed in sheriff’s records, And began with a March 18 meeting in San Luis Río Colorado, Mexico.

It took place at a home referred to as the “green house,” 7 miles
south of town, surrounded by a 6-foot-high block wall with a metal
gate. According to the story, two Minutemen leaders secretly met with
the administrator of a Mexican narcotics ring. The Minutemen wanted
Arpaio killed to “rally more support for their cause, which is to
secure the U.S.-Mexican border and stop illegal immigration.”

They agreed on a price of $3 million in cash, with a $1.5 million
down payment. Elias Bermudez, a Phoenix immigrant-rights advocate and
talk-radio host, was the middleman in the plot. Bermudez said he never
heard of the plot until he was contacted by investigators. the hit team
would kill Arpaio up close with handguns.

“Pure fabrication,” Bermudez said. “I told them I had no reason to
wish for the demise of the sheriff. The idea of me and the Minutemen
trying to hire someone to do this is outlandish.”

This just illustrates what an odd, paranoid universe Arpaio inhabits. The Minutemen are going to hire a Mexican drug cartel to whack him, with an immigration rights activist acting as middleman? You have got to be kidding me. And Arpaio wants us to trust him to have a role in the United State’s relationship with Mexico by enforcing immigration laws? I don’t think so. Anyone who could be induced to spend half-a-million taxpayer bones on some paid informant’s drug-induced ramblings shouldn’t even be holding public office. Arpaio should have seen through this fantasy from the get-go: no one would pay $1.5 million for his worthless hide.