PHOENIX – More than a decade after a federal monitor started overseeing major changes at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), Sheriff Jerry Sheridan is responding to an audit that accuses the agency of improperly attributing $160 million in taxpayer funds.
What we know:
The MCSO has been under federal oversight since 2013 due to a racial profiling lawsuit filed against former Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
The independent, court-ordered audit claims a majority of the $160 million the department billed the county for case-related expenses was spent on items unrelated to the oversight program, such as surplus vehicles, body cameras, and a golf cart. The audit claims more than 70% of costs attributed to federal compliance were for unrelated items.
Sheridan addressed the controversy at an MCSO meeting Wednesday, Oct. 22, as the department pushes to end the federal monitoring, claiming it is now in full compliance.
“I don’t think there is any mislabeling of funds, I don’t give the monitor’s report any credibility whatsoever,” Sheridan said.
Judge Murray Snow, who oversees the federal monitoring case, addressed the audit’s findings during the meeting.
“I’ve given them the opportunity if they want, even though they haven’t been able to do it yet, to find a justification for these figures,” Judge Snow said.
Dig deeper:
When asked by FOX 10 to clarify if he believes each of the 38 findings are false, Sheridan deflected the specific accusations.
“I don’t know if it’s every one of them, OK, but to make a big deal about a golf cart, right? How much does a golf cart cost, really?” Sheridan said. “And the fact that they left out what it costs county taxpayers to pay him, the monitor, $32 million over 11 years, that’s an awful lot of money.”
The sheriff offered insight into the department’s cost tracking for the Melendres case.
“What the Sheriff’s Office has done for the last 11 years is basically take the things that we are doing that are related to [the case] and just a little asterisk there so we could figure out how much this costs over the years,” he said.
Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan
Despite the audit, Sheridan took time to praise the MCSO’s handling of the scrutiny, saying, “There is no law enforcement agency that takes this as seriously as we do.”
However, an ACLU representative for the plaintiffs said work remains before oversight can end.
“MCSO has not, in our position, ruled out potential signals of bias with the alarming increase in traffic stop extensions disproportionately for minority drivers,” said John Mitchell of the ACLU.
What’s next:
MCSO has been given 30 days to respond to the audit, if they choose to do so. Sheriff Sheridan says they have not decided their course of action just yet.
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