Sheriff Joe Arpaio probe ended with no charges filed

GlobalPost

The US Attorney’s Office in Arizona has ended an investigation into alleged financial wrongdoing by Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, nationally known for aggressively enforcing immigration laws and questioning the authenticity of President Barack Obama's US birth certificate, CNN reported. Federal investigators declined to file charges.

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"After careful review, we do not believe the allegations presented to us are prosecutable as crimes," Assistant US Attorney Ann Birmingham Scheel said in a statement on Friday, according to Reuters.

In November 2010, Arizona’s Maricopa County Board of Supervisors asked the feds to look into abuse of county credit cards, misspending of funds and other possible financial misconduct by Arpaio and his deputies, Reuters reported.

"I said all along I would be cleared in this case," Arpaio, 80, told reporters in downtown Phoenix late Friday, according to Reuters. "My people are not crooks. They are trying to do their job."

"It is a miscarriage of justice that the federal government is dropping its case against Sheriff Arpaio and to make such an announcement on the Friday night before the Democratic National Convention can only be politically motivated to shield the administration from criticism," Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.

Arpaio, who calls himself “the toughest sheriff in America,” is still facing a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing him and his office of racial profiling and unlawful arrests of Latinos, CNN reported.

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