Megan Cassidy, and Michael Kiefer

The Republic | azcentral.com

On Jan. 1, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio relinquishes the star that made him a star and becomes Citizen Joe Arpaio.

Few elected officials can boast a quarter-century of tenure, even those with spotless reputations. Arpaio’s legacy was tainted by multimillion-dollar lawsuits arising out of jail deaths, political prosecutions and racial profiling that led to criminal contempt-of-court charges.

Despite the scandals, that star on his chest remained bright and shiny for an adoring, if shrinking, constituency charmed by his bumper-sticker slogans about enforcing the laws and deporting illegal immigrants and making bad guys pay for their crimes, and by his gimmicky pink underwear and chain gangs and Tent City.

“When I think back: How did I survive for 24 years with all the controversy and heat?” he asked Arizona Republic reporters in an interview conducted 10 days before his final exit from office.

His roomy corner office on the top floor of the sheriff’s headquarters in downtown Phoenix already had been stripped of the autobiographical memorabilia and magazine covers from his 55 years in law enforcement, decor that once defined his workspace as much as it described his persona: America’s Toughest Sheriff.

Five floors down, the transition team for the new sheriff, Paul Penzone, already had started setting up shop, and Penzone had been making his way around the building to meet with MCSO staff members.

Arpaio was alone in his office, already removed from the action.

Looking for a new role: 'I’m not going away'

He never has been one to express remorse. And during the interview, as he has done frequently over 25 years, he turned to the song he adopted as his own brand, “My Way,” the late Frank Sinatra's signature song.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few / But then again, too few to mention,” he recited, repeating the last four words before reboarding the Sinatra train of thought.

“On my tombstone, I don’t know: Maybe it should be, ‘He did it his way,’ ” he said. “That song … ’travel each and every highway,’ ‘I took the blows,’ I think that song kind of matches me.

“I think Donald Trump and I traveled the same highway. But I just took a little detour right now.”

MORE: The Republic's 8-part profile of Sheriff Joe Arpaio

The song’s melancholy isn’t lost on Arpaio’s wife, Ava.

“Now, my wife doesn’t like the song for one reason,” he said. “The way it opens: ‘And now, the end is near.’ ”

Or rather, at the Sheriff's Office, now the end is here.

Arpaio seemed to struggle with the weight of that finality yet was resolved to find his new place in the world.

He seemed anxious about the prospect of unemployment.

“If you stop working, you die,” he said.

“I don’t play golf. I have no hobbies,” he said. “I live in Fountain Hills. Not that I get tired of watching the fountain …

“I have a lot of projects in mind. So I’m not going away,” he said, but he was coy about what those projects will entail.

Though it seems increasingly unlikely he will be chosen for a top position under President-elect Donald Trump, Arpaio appears to be holding out hope for some role in the administration.

Montini: With Arpaio's trial delayed will Trump offer him a job? Why not?

“If he calls, I’ll listen to him,” he said. “When the president calls, everybody says, 'I must serve my country.' I’ve served my country for 55 years.”

He plans to speak around the country about “the war on cops,” he said.

He is vague on details but said he would meet with local law enforcement.

Ava Arpaio's cancer is in remission and she’s a “trouper,” he said; she’ll follow him wherever he goes.

Decisive, divisive: A perpetual lightning rod

Since Arpaio took office in 1993, cases involving him or his office have cost taxpayers upward of $140 million in legal expenses, settlements and court awards.

There were enormous court awards for deaths in the Maricopa County jails.

He arrested and a former county attorney filed charges against sitting judges, supervisors and county employees in 2008 and 2009. All of the cases fell apart. All of the targets sued and settled.

His patrol deputies zeroed in on Latinos on the presumption that they were in the country illegally. He established a unit to raid workplaces and round up those suspected of working under false Social Security numbers.

A new lawsuit seemed to follow each tactic. The most damning case, Melendres v. Arpaio, began when a Mexican tourist who was in the U.S. legally was stopped by a deputy and detained for nine hours.

MORE: Nine years after arrest, Manuel Melendres speaks publicly

The case grew into a class-action suit and resulted in a federal judge finding that Arpaio’s office had racially profiled Latinos during its operations. The Melendres lawsuit alone was expected to cost taxpayers more than $72 million by mid-2017 and has spun out further challenges for Arpaio.

When a federal judge ordered the Sheriff’s Office to stop targeting immigrants, Arpaio and his top officers defied the order and landed in court, first on civil contempt-of-court charges. In October, he was charged with criminal contempt. Crowds of immigrants and immigrant-rights advocates celebrated the step.

In the end, weary voters turned away.

'I don’t know what you mean by 'too far' '

Even if Arpaio wants to move forward to his “new beginning,” one of his lawsuits will keep him tethered to the past, at least for now.

All of the pending civil lawsuits against the sheriff stay with the office and will be passed on to Penzone. But Arpaio is personally bound by the criminal contempt charge, which was requested by a U.S. District Court judge in October and is being prosecuted by the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section.

Trial is set for April 4. Given that Arpaio is no longer in office and counts the nation’s president-elect as an ally, it appears unlikely that he’ll do any of the possible six months in jail if found guilty.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio wants jury to decide his contempt case

His criminal case is one of the topics that he begrudgingly keeps off-limits to reporters.

“Believe me, I would love to talk,” he said.

Trump rode into office in part by capitalizing on fear of illegal immigration from Latin America.

Arpaio rode that same wave, starting in 2006 as Arizona began passing state laws that targeted undocumented immigrants. Most of the laws eventually were deemed unconstitutional by federal courts. U.S. Customs and Border Protection stripped the Sheriff's Office's authority to process immigrants.

Still, Arpaio downplays his role in the immigration debate and denies that his policies ever went too far.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘too far,’ ” he said. “Because we were very successful?

“They sue me all the time. Whether it’s this issue, they don’t like the food … I could go on and on. Being sued is not unusual when you’re in a law enforcement agency.”

He viewed it as a job left undone.

“I wasn’t finished yet,” he said. “One battle would have been to set the record straight (on) certain court situations.

“Also, we’ve had some rulings on illegal immigration. I would have decided how to pursue illegal immigration, legally.”

And he would not accept the suggestion that his policies fractured trust between Hispanic communities and law enforcement.

“First of all, I don’t think we’re the only agency enforcing illegal immigration laws,” he said. “Why are they picking me out? I may be a little high profile; I get more publicity than they do.”

Predictably, he was unwilling to back down from his contention that President Barack Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery — despite widespread ridicule of the idea, despite the point that Obama’s mother’s U.S. citizenship would have made him a citizen regardless of where he was born, and despite the November defeat that ended his long run in office.

He made his final case to the public in a flashy news conference in mid-December.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, still a 'birther,' says 5-year investigation proves Obama birth certificate is 'fake'

That final episode of “The Joe Show” dazzled the "tea party" supporters in the audience but induced eye rolls from many others.

“I can’t just start something and forget about it,” he said. “You really think I’m going to take a back seat?”

Instead, he said he would turn over his new "birther" information to the Republican-led Congress with hopes officials would investigate further.

'They understand, you know, you can’t last forever'

It is not only thing he had left undone. Asked what weighed on his mind, Arpaio launched into a litany.

“Why don’t you say, ‘Sheriff, what about the great things you have done? … What we have done to protect the people of this county where crime has gone down, with all my programs, that all have a rationale? … How we have solved murders, how by the way, I’m very proud.

“I don’t ask for endorsements, you know that. … (But) I did get endorsements this time, and I’m very proud of those endorsements … the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, the Arizona Police Association, the Deputy Association, our Detention Association, our Border Patrol —18,000 real, hard-working cops that know the streets endorsed this sheriff this time around. … I’m very proud, that as I close my career this time, that I had the cops on the street that really know what’s going on, endorsing this sheriff, for re-election.”

But he wasn’t re-elected, and it puzzles him, because, as he said, it seemed everyone he ran into told him they had voted for him.

Arpaio hesitated when asked how he would like to be remembered.

“As tough,” he said, adding that he was pretty private and even “bashful.”

“I do have a heart,” he said. “The doctor told me so."

“I think I’m a pretty good guy,” he said. “And I have a lot of support out there — it makes me sad in a way. But, they understand, you know, you can’t last forever.”

Then after a pause, he asked the question on his mind.

“How long do you think they’ll remember me?”

Being sheriff was the best job he’d ever had in his 55-year career. Presidents and governors retain their titles, even after they leave office, he noted, and he believed the same courtesy should apply to him.

“I’m still the sheriff,” he said.