The former sheriff of Maricopa County Joe Arpaio has filed a libel suit against The New York Times and a member of their editorial board over a opinion piece published after he lost his Senate bid in Arizona.
The complaint, obtained by Politico, refers to the article "Well, at Least Sheriff Joe Isn’t Going to Congress," written by Michelle Cottle, who is also named in the suit, as being defamatory.
"While the Defamatory Article is strategically titled as an opinion piece, it contains several false, defamatory factual assertions concerning Plaintiff Arpaio," the complaint reads.
In the piece, published near the end of August, Cottle refers to Arpaio's time as sheriff as "his 24-year reign of terror," and says it was "medieval in its brutality."
"In addition to conducting racial profiling on a mass scale and terrorizing immigrant neighborhoods with gratuitous raids and traffic stops and detentions, he oversaw a jail where mistreatment of inmates was the stuff of legend. Abuses ranged from the humiliating to the lethal," Cottle wrote.
In July of 2017, Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt of court in a case related to racial profiling. He was later pardoned by President Trump.
The complaint, filed Tuesday in Washington DC, says the "false factual assertions" made in the article are "carefully and maliciously calculated to damage" Arpaio's reputation and "prevent him from successfully run for U.S. Senate in 2020 or another public office as a Republican."
Arpaio lost in the Arizona Republican primary to Martha McSally, who is now running against Kyrsten Sinema for the seat being vacated by Sen. Jeff Flake.
A spokeswoman for The New York Times told Politico, "we intend to vigorously defend against the lawsuit."
The former Maricopa County sheriff is seeking $147,500,000 in damages from Cottle and The Times along with attorney fees and "any other relief that this Court may deem just and proper," according to the complaint.
