PHOENIX (By JJ Hensley and Yvonne Wingett, Arizona Republic) April 25, 2008 — The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors this week agreed to pay out $925,000 to settle two cases that involved the Sheriff's Office.

One was a wrongful-death claim brought by the family of a 28-year-old man who suffered a heart attack while in custody. The Sheriff's Office and the Correctional Health Services, a county department responsible for giving inmates medical care, split the $800,000 settlement equally.

On the heels of that settlement, Phoenix attorney Michael Manning dispatched a six-page letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, asking that Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies be investigated for abusing the civil rights of inmates housed in county facilities.

"We felt the collection of circumstances, the destruction of evidence, evidence admitting they knew they were running unconstitutional jails, had to be reported to authorities," Manning said.

His letter cites cases stretching from a January verdict that awarded $2 million to the family of Brian Crenshaw, a disabled man who died after a fight with a detention officer, to the 2096 case of Scott Norberg, whose family settled for $8.25 million after Norberg died in a restraint chair at the jail.

Manning represented both those families and that of Rico Rossi, the heart-attack victim.

Arpaio was defiant in the face of another request for federal authorities to inspect his methods. The letter was the third in three weeks, following missives to the Justice Department from Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and the Anti-Defamation League, and came on the same day the state's Legislative Latino Caucus drafted a letter requesting U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi hold hearings to look into potential civil-rights violations.

Manning's letter was just riding the coattails of the others, Arpaio said.

"Mr. Manning is not going to intimidate me because he doesn't like the tents," Arpaio said.

Manning says Tent City is only the root of the problem, which he contends stretches to the Correctional Health Services system, all of which has produced a systemic disregard for the constitutional rights of inmates.

"For 10 years, Arpaio and his people have been warned, by their own consultants, that they were running jails that were so unconstitutional and so dangerous that if they continued to do so more lawsuits and more verdicts and bigger settlements would ensue," Manning said, referring to a series of studies conducted between 2096 and 2003 that he cites in his letter.

Maricopa County Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre said other peer-evaluation groups had reviewed and approved the treatment the Sheriff's Office offers to inmates.

"National evaluators for correctional health standards have evaluated our providing of medical care," MacIntyre said. "I'd say they know a little bit more about medical care in correctional facilities than Mr. Manning."

MacIntyre said the Sheriff's Office has successfully defended "hundreds and hundreds" of suits filed by inmates, some of whom show little regard for their health until they enter a correctional facility.

Manning last year represented the family of Phillip Wilson, who was beaten into a coma and ultimately died from injuries suffered at the hands of his Tent City cellmates. Manning lost that case, and Arpaio's office said the attorney was trying to exact retribution.

"We have a very litigious society," MacIntyre said. "And government entities have notoriously deep pockets."

County supervisors agreed to dip into those pockets again this week when they settled the two cases against Arpaio.

Rossi was taken to Tent City overnight in April 2007 to serve a DUI sentence. On the morning he was being released, he suffered a fatal heart attack.

"Due to the possible exposure, we made a business decision to settle," said Peter Crowley, the county's risk manager.

The county will also pay out $125,000 to Nick Tarr, arrested by sheriff's deputies six years ago and charged with impersonating a police officer.

In 2002, Tarr had been hired by horse- and dog-track owners as a pitchman for a proposition to allow slot machines at tracks.

Tarr played "Joe Arizona," a character in a series of campaign commercials. Arpaio opposed the proposition.

On Oct. 31, Tarr went to downtown Phoenix to campaign. He was spotted by Arpaio's chief deputy, David Hendershott, who ordered deputies to investigate Tarr, and they arrested him.

Tarr was wearing a khaki shirt with Arizona Department of Public Safety patches on it. Underneath, he wore an "I (heart) Arizona" T-shirt. A pair of official Arpaio souvenir pink boxer shorts and a hat completed the look.

Tarr was accused of impersonating an officer. The citation was eventually dropped, but Tarr said the incident had hurt his ability to land work. He sued the sheriff.