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Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio testifies at contempt hearing in Phoenix

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, shown in 2012, testified Wednesday in a hearing to determine whether he and top aides should be held in contempt.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, shown in 2012, testified Wednesday in a hearing to determine whether he and top aides should be held in contempt.

(Matt York / Associated Press)
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Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio took the stand Wednesday to begin his testimony in a hearing to determine whether he and top aides should be held in contempt for deliberately ignoring a court order in a long-running civil rights case.

Arpaio, who has touted himself as “America’s toughest sheriff,” testified for about an hour, appearing meeker than normal as he answered questions about his immigration enforcement efforts, according to the Associated Press. He often replied to questions by saying, “I don’t recall,” it said.

The 82-year-old Maricopa County sheriff took responsibility for failing to follow the court order, “but he repeatedly added that he delegated the enforcement of the injunction to his lawyers and staff,” the Associated Press said.

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In 2013, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow ruled that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department routinely used unconstitutional racial profiling to target Latinos it suspected of having entered the country illegally, and ordered it to stop doing so. Even though federal monitoring of the department began a few months later, Arpaio has repeatedly been accused of ordering his deputies to ignore the court-mandated reforms.

Arpaio has refused to comment on the proceedings, which are being held before Snow in Phoenix.

Arizona civil rights advocates, who have long sparred with Arpaio, have said the hearing is an important exercise that will drag the sheriff’s behavior into the light.

“He has been trying to get out of this desperately,” Alessandra Soler, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said in an interview Tuesday. “He has been hiding behind the badge, and that’s why it is very, very important to have a public trial.”

On Tuesday, a sergeant from the Sheriff’s Department said Arpaio had ordered subordinates to defy the reforms Snow ordered in 2013.

Arpaio has acknowledged disobeying the judge’s order and accepted responsibility for some of the other issues, such as his agency’s failure to turn over traffic-stop videos in a profiling case.

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His testimony is expected to continue Thursday.

Times staff writer Michael Muskal contributed to this report.

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