An attorney for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office told a federal judge that the agency destroyed documents it should have retained as part of a racial-profiling lawsuit, opening the door for sanctions against Sheriff Joe Arpaio's agency.

Tim Casey, an attorney representing Arpaio, admitted to U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow that deputies destroyed "stat sheets" generated in Arpaio's controversial "crime suppression operations" and had also failed to retain thousands of emails, all of which the agency could have turned over to plaintiffs' attorneys in the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs' attorneys, who represent five people claiming sheriff's deputies detained them because of their skin color, filed a motion asking Snow for sanctions in November.

The hour-long hearing Thursday was the first chance for both parties to make their case in front of Snow, who essentially separated the destroyed "stat sheets" from the deleted emails.

Casey said that confusion among deputies over which stat sheets to retain and a lack of communication about keeping emails led to the lost and destroyed documents. Attorneys for the plaintiffs claim the material would show the Sheriff's Office engaged in selective enforcement during the crime-suppression operations.

"Doesn't that make information that might have been contained on those stat sheets relevant?" Snow asked, which Casey did not dispute.

Snow then asked if the legal requirement for sanctions was met when it came to the destroyed stat sheets.

"Yes," Casey replied.

Snow held off on the sanctions ruling and told both parties to return for a conference in mid-March. By then, the sheriff's attorneys should have turned over thousands of emails related to the activities of the Human Smuggling Unit.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, including the American Civil Liberties Union and lawyers from Steptoe and Johnson, who also represent The Arizona Republic, claim the emails should have been preserved from the time the lawsuit was filed in December 2007.

Sheriff's officials either ignored that stipulation or didn't adequately communicate it to members of the Human Smuggling Unit.

Casey told the court on Thursday that any Human Smuggling Unit emails generated before Oct. 31 were gone, unless they were specifically saved. Casey said emails from the unit during a 28-day period in November added up to more than 400,000 documents while about 3,800 emails remained from all of 2007 and about 9,800 from 2008.

"It's a problem that has to be addressed with the (Sheriff's Office) so it's not repeated," he said. Casey reminded the court that sheriff's personnel testified that the deleted emails were "chit chat" and anything relevant to the case was produced.

In the last two months, the Sheriff's Office has turned over about 1,000 pages of documents to the plaintiff's attorneys.

Peter Kozinets, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the case represents an egregious violation of the sheriff's discovery duties.

"More than two years have gone by and for us to be getting this now is simply intolerable," Kozinets said.