Arpaio again asks judge to halt civil-contempt hearing

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan have made another attempt to skirt a looming civil-contempt hearing, scheduled to begin in just more than a week.

In a motion filed Friday afternoon, the officials appealed to U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow's personal concerns, promising that a $100,000 contribution to a civil-rights organization would come directly from Arpaio's and Sheridan's pockets.

Snow had asked for this guarantee last month when discussing the possibility of calling off the hearing. Days before, Arpaio admitted he violated several of Snow's orders, and he has already petitioned the judge to issue a finding of civil contempt based on those admissions.

The orders resulted from a 2007 class-action civil-rights case that alleges the Sheriff's Office's immigration sweeps amounted to discriminatory policing against Latinos.

Plaintiffs' attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations have resisted Arpaio and Sheridan's efforts to cancel the contempt proceedings, and they declined the defendants' request to join their motion for entry of judgment.

Arpaio's and Sheridan's personal payout would be in addition to several other suggested punitive measures, including:

— A videotape admission of guilt from Arpaio;

— A $350,000 compensation fund, which they would request from Maricopa County;

— A vow to dismiss the pending appeal to the racial-profiling case;

— Granting power to a court-appointed monitor to open and conduct internal investigations;

— Identification of other officials who bear responsibility for violations of the court order.

The two have consented to three areas of contempt:

— That the agency knowingly failed to abide by Snow's 2011 order to stop detaining people solely on the suspicion of being in the country illegally;

— That officials did not disclose all required information in pretrial proceedings;

— That the agency failed to properly follow Snow's May 2014 order to quietly collect audio- and video-recording devices from deputies.

The contempt hearing is scheduled for April 21-24.