Montini: Different judge, same smackdown for Joe Arpaio

Another federal judge delivered a body blow to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, allowing a the owner of Uncle Sam’s restaurants to go forward with a claim against Arpaio of malicious arrest and prosecution.

Arpaio’s deputies raided the restaurants back in 2013, claiming employment-related identify theft. They claimed that the owner Bret Frimmel had hired employees who were using fake IDs. The sheriff held press conferences (like always.) The business took a huge hit in terms of public relations.

But at a hearing early on it was determined there were many errors in the affidavits used to obtain the search warrants used by deputies and no probable cause for the searches or arrests.

The charges were dismissed.

But, as Frimmel’s attorney Leon Silver told me Wednesday, “The damage had been done. For no reason, you end up destroying a business, a family restaurant that has been successful in the Valley for 35 years. What the sheriff did has undone so many years of good will so many years of doing good in the community. It’s awful.”

Arpaio’s attorney’s tried to get the case thrown out.

But U.S. District Judge Steven Logan was having none of it.

In his order allowing the case to move forward the judge said in part, “Plaintiffs’ allegations… if true, describe conduct by Arpaio and (a named deputy) that is extreme and outrageous. If a law enforcement officer lies to obtain search warrants and arrest warrants, and pursues criminal charges when no probable cause exists, such behavior would create a near certainty that stress would result. If the supervisor tolerates and encourages such behavior, that also would rise to the level of extreme and outrageous…”

This isn’t the end of the case, of course.

It’s not even the end of the beginning.

Arpaio’s attorneys have plenty of legal maneuvers available to them.

And, of course, the sheriff already dealing with the lengthy contempt case before federal judge Murray Snow.

Eventually, however, there could be a discovery phase that will air all of the sheriff’s dirty laundry when it comes to cases involving what appear to be retaliatory tactics.

Perhaps that will lead to a settlement.

“Even if something like that were to occur it will have been years of really tough times for my clients,” Silver told me. “This shouldn’t happen to good people.”