TUCSON – The sheriff of Maricopa County wants to know why emails thought to be deleted were actually saved.
The emails were not only saved but archived for years. Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office is now locked in battle with the county over just who owns those emails. It is a battle that is taking place in a Tucson court room.
The sheriff’s attorney, Carey Martin, argues, “The emails belong to MCSO. They do not belong to the county. The county had no right to record those emails…keep those emails and ship them off to a third party unknown company.”
MCSO says those emails contain sensitive information regarding warrants, grand jury’s and ongoing investigations and the sheriff wants to know who this third-party company is, what their qualifications are and why the county decided to archive these emails.
The county says they did so at the direction of their counsel, Mr. Thomas Irvin.
Two county supervisors have been indicted and the sheriff is accused of both racial profiling and abuse of power.
Also the United States Attorney's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a grand jury are now involved.
Martin says, “What the county has done with the emails has been done in concurrence with the U.S. Attorney's office.”
A letter written by the U.S. Attorney regarding the grand jury investigation was entered into the record but sealed.
Nevertheless, MCSO wants to know why no one told them that emails were being archived. Martin says, “Even though they knew those emails were relevant and important to MCSO, they failed to tell the sheriff's office the existence of the emails.
