Joe Arpaio loses $300M defamation lawsuit against CNN, HuffPost, Rolling Stone

[Demovictory9]

https://nypost.com/2019/11/01/joe-arpaio-loses-300m-defamation-lawsuit-against-cnn-huffpost-rolling-stone/

A federal judge has tossed a $300 million defamation lawsuit filed against three national news outlets by America’s self-styled “toughest sheriff” Joe Arpaio.


Joe Arpaio files $300M defamation suit against 3 news organizations
A judge in Washington on Thursday dismissed the suit filed in December by the former six-term Maricopa County sheriff, alleging that CNN, the Huffington Post and Rolling Stone published inaccuracies that hurt his chances to win a US Senate seat and to procure necessary funding from the “Republican establishment and donors,” the Arizona Republic reports.

But Arpaio’s suit failed to prove actual malice, US District Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in his opinion, while acknowledging the burden of doing so is a “difficult one to meet.”

“But without this safeguard, the threat of lawsuits would chill our precious First Amendment rights to freely engage in political discourse,” Lamberth said.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

1. Good

[pwb]

2. Go away Joe.

.

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. No shit. The bus to Obscurity has been waiting with its doors open for quite a while.

Kindly step aboard, Arpaio.

[TexasTowelie]

3. I thought that Republicans were against frivolous lawsuits.

I hope that the judge ordered Arpaio to pay the legal expenses for all defendants.

[struggle4progress]

4. Taxpayer Bill From Profiling Case to Reach $150M by Mid-2020

April 19, 2019, at 4:31 p.m.
BY JACQUES BILLEAUD, Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) — The taxpayer bill for a racial profiling case stemming from former Sheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration patrols in metropolitan Phoenix is expected to reach nearly $150 million by the summer of 2020.

Officials say Maricopa County taxpayers have already paid $111.5 million in attorney and compliance costs since the lawsuit over traffic patrols targeting immigrants was filed in 2007, and the figure is projected to rise by nearly $7.4 million by the end of June.

And in the coming months, county officials are expected to approve an additional $30.8 million in compliance costs for the fiscal year ending in the summer of 2020.

No one involved in the case or in county government can say exactly when the financial hemorrhaging will slow down or end ...

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/arizona/articles/2019-04-19/taxpayer-bill-from-profiling-case-to-reach-150m-by-mid-2020

[NoMoreRepugs]

8. This piece of shit is a poster boy for the kind of individual

that tRUMP idolizes.

[StClone]

12. A lot of "rogue" cops cost the communities they serve.

Millions in wrongful deaths, discrimination, profiling, abuse...

[struggle4progress]

5. Joe Arpaio Announces Campaign for Old Job

By Alexa Lardieri, Staff Writer
Aug. 26, 2019, at 1:48 p.m.

... In his announcement Sunday, Arpaio said "thousands want me to run for sheriff." The launch came on the day two years ago that Trump pardoned him on a conviction related to racial profiling.

... A federal court had ordered Arpaio to end patrols that stopped and detained Hispanics suspected of being in the country illegally.

Arpaio ignored the order and continued patrols that targeted immigrants ...

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2019-08-26/former-arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio-announces-campaign-for-old-job-in-maricopa-county

[struggle4progress]

7. Arpaio doesn't want conviction raised in future

The Associated Press
Posted Oct 23, 2019

... The former six-term sheriff from metro Phoenix is appealing a ruling that refused to expunge his conviction for disobeying a 2011 court order barring his traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. The 2017 ruling said pardons don’t erase convictions or the facts of cases and that President Donald Trump’s pardon of Arpaio only removed his possible punishments ...

Special prosecutor Christopher Caldwell urged the judges to reject Arpaio’s arguments, saying the there are no legal consequences from the now-pardoned conviction and that U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton didn’t abuse her judicial powers when she refused to erase the conviction ...

Caldwell had argued in the past that Arpaio gave up his right to appeal the conviction when he accepted the August 2017 pardon — and that if the former sheriff wanted to challenge the conviction, he should have rejected the clemency and taken his chances in the appeals court ...

Arpaio’s defiance of the court order is believed to have contributed to his 2016 election loss ...

https://www.azfamily.com/news/ap_cnn/arpaio-doesn-t-want-conviction-raised-in-the-future/article_2b0df04c-f595-11e9-ab05-c7c038644ba7.html

[struggle4progress]

9. Let's recount how much Arpaio cost us

Laurie Roberts, Arizona Republic
Published 11:10 a.m. MT Aug. 27, 2019
Updated 9:05 a.m. MT Aug. 28, 2019

... Maricopa County has shelled out $95.2 million as a result of lawsuits claiming civil rights violations and other abuses during Arpaio’s time in office ...

"With a fraction of the inmate population, Arpaio has had 50 times as many lawsuits as the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston jail systems combined" ...

Maricopa County has thus far spent nearly $119 million to comply with U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow’s orders and to pay legal costs resulting from the inevitable lawsuit over Arpaio’s unconstitutional immigration patrols, county records show. The tab is expected to hit $150,847,671 by next summer, with no end in sight ...

... Watch out, taxpayers.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2019/08/27/joe-arpaio-maricopa-county-sheriff-election-campaign/2131407001/

[struggle4progress]

10. Maricopa County Republican charged with human smuggling adoption scheme

Esther Wang
10/10/19 1:45PM

Maricopa County Republicans, wow! First y’all offer up Joe Arpaio, and now you have Paul Petersen, the Maricopa County tax assessor who this week was indicted on charges that in addition to his elected position, he also ran an adoption and human smuggling scheme—in which he allegedly paid pregnant women from the Marshall Islands thousands of dollars to come the United States to give birth and then put the babies up for adoption, oftentimes forcing them to sleep in crammed rooms and without adequate medical care.

On Tuesday, Arizona state troopers searched one of his properties, and found eight pregnant Marshallese women; several more are currently living in Utah. Authorities in Utah, Arizona, and Arkansas have charged Petersen, as well as his alleged co-conspirator Lynwood Jennet, with more than 30 counts including human smuggling, sale of a child, fraud, forgery, and conspiracy to commit money laundering ...

https://theslot.jezebel.com/maricopa-county-republican-charged-with-running-a-human-1838943643

[Hermit-The-Prog]

23. does AZ know how much all these Repugnants cost them?

[struggle4progress]

24. There's a good project for us!

[Vinca]

11. I hope he had to pay the legal fees of the entities he sued.

[onethatcares]

18. my thoughts eggzachery

the other side always calls these "frivolous" and want to take every dime from a progressive for losing a suit. oldmanjoe should pay every cent of the defendants attorney fees..........no exception.

[orangecrush]

13. COUNTERSUE HIS ASS!!!

[MarcA]

19. A very good idea.

Did the defendants have any court costs before this came to trial?
This would be a good idea to stop frivolous and SLAP lawsuits.

[Wounded Bear]

14. We really should just bury this guy...

but I suppose we have to wait until he dies.

Oh, wait, I was being metaphorical!

[lunatica]

15. The news gets better and better now that the tide has turned.

[sakabatou]

16. Let me get out my Planck-scale violin

[Fritz Walter]

17. Let's hope the judge hearing the Sandmann v. WaPo is equally wise

From The Hill:

Judge William O. Bertelsman on Monday ruled that the case could enter the discovery phase and that a small part of the initial lawsuit could proceed. The decision came just months after Bertelsman dismissed the case on grounds that The Post's reporting on the matter was protected by the First Amendment.

...

After reviewing an amended complaint, Bertelsman ruled Monday that three statements related to The Post's coverage of Phillips' claim that Sandmann "blocked" Phillips warranted further review.

"These three statements state that (Sandmann) 'blocked' Nathan Phillips and 'would not allow him to retreat,'" Bertelsman wrote. "Suffice to say that the Court has given this matter careful review and concludes that 'justice requires' that discovery be had regarding these statements and their context. The Court will then consider them anew on summary judgment."

Proving malice should be just as burdensome here, IMHO.

[BlueMTexpat]

21. Amen to that. eom

[BlueMTexpat]

20. At long last, a win for those

of us who oppose this fascist POS.

[Blue Owl]

22. Hey Joe the roach hotel has a room left for ya

n/t