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PHOENIX -- The man FOX News first declared America's toughest sheriff may soon be posing for his own mug shot. Capitol Hill sources confirm the FBI is investigating multiple allegations against Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, charges that are said to include murder of suspects in custody, civil rights violations, blackmail, graft and use of his office to settle political vendettas. The last of America's true old style political bosses is nearly eighty and if just half the allegations become elements of a federal grand jury indictment, Sheriff Joe as his supporters call him, would doubtless spend several years awaiting trial in federal detention. Bail is seldom granted in cases where the suspect has purportedly salted away millions of dollars in off shore accounts and is a flight risk. Sources close to the federal task force report the break came when senior deputies hoping to avoid long prison terms flipped on their boss and began cooperating with the Justice department. For more than a decade the small portly neoconservative populist exercised an iron fist over a vast statewide political machine, But the findings of a federal grand jury may change all that and leave Arizona's republican political infrastructure in free fall. The beginning of the end actually began when scandal forced Alberto Gonzales resignation as Attorney General, Not wanting to be remembered as being quite so corrupt as his predecessor, Michael Mukasey reportedly permitted dozens of complaints against the sheriff gathering dust to be reviewed, they discovered even by George Bush's standards the behavior of a county sheriff who speaks in the third person and titles himself America's sheriff was too much to ignore any longer. Public documentation alone details a man whose political machine has had its hand in murder, rape, kidnapping, graft, blackmail and every possible criminal activity. The scope of the crimes is said to have spurred even jaded republican political hacks at justice to order the FBI into action. When Barack Obama's people took over at justice the investigation already underway was assigned even more resources and people, revelations surfaced that confirmed the sheriff had allowed individuals with known ties to violent white supremacist and separatist groups to join his armed and badge toting volunteer special deputy ranks. Videos of the sheriff's relationship with radical separatists can be seen at this link The sheriff's poll ratings which had been in the upper 90% for more than a decade began to slip after the 2006 midterms when his handpicked congressional delegation was booted out of congress. The election of democrats to Arizona's Gubernatorial and Attorney General's office opened the flood gates and local Mayors and council members all over the State who had cow towed to the sheriffs machine for years began speaking against him. The Sheriff responded by announcing his office had been conducting a super double top secret investigations against democrats and was close to arresting the A.G who held his own press conference to chuckle and declare the State would no longer be accepting calls or cases from the Sheriff of Maricopa county. Claiming disrespect for the office of sheriff would not stand on his watch, he began to deploy fully armed swat teams to raid city halls around Arizona claiming they were harboring terrorists and illegal aliens posing as janitors, called press conferences to warn his followers he had proof positive "they" were also engaged in a conspiracy with drug cartels from Mexico to assasinate the personage of the sheriff, As the feds begin to draw the butterfly net around the sheriff of Maricopa county his press conferences have become film noir, he rants at the vast left wing political conspiracy arrayed against him shouts that the federal agents in the audience who have already identified themselves are actually posing as reporters or cab drivers and street sweepers, stalking his every move and out to get him. Some suspect the sheriffs more bizarre than usual behavior of late suggest he may be planning an insanity defense or will attempt to have doctors certify he is afflicted with Alzheimer's and unfit to stand trial. |
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