Court-ordered report says MCSO overstated cost of racial-profiling case by $163M

PHOENIX – A new report alleges that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has been grossly overreporting the cost of court-ordered oversight in a long-running racial-profiling case.

As a result, the county may have been breaking state-mandated spending limits for several years.

The revelation was made through a court-ordered audit of expenses reported by MCSO in what’s known as the Ortega Melendres case, or just Melendres, which dates back to Joe Arpaio’s time as the sheriff for Greater Phoenix.

A report on the findings filed in court on Wednesday says MCSO inappropriately attributed over $163 million to Melendres, a figure that represents 72% of the agency’s reported costs in the case. The total includes $144.4 million for misattributed or improperly prorated personnel expenditures.

“While this analysis does not challenge whether these costs from MCSO’s budget were, in fact, incurred, the characterization that these expenditures were directed by the court is a gross misrepresentation,” the report says. “This mischaracterization misleads the public on the cost of reform efforts and calls into question MCSO’s credibility, transparency and truthfulness of its reporting to the public, the parties and the court.”

Furthermore, the report said the county may be guilty of violating spending limits defined in the Arizona Constitution for the last three years.

“It is likely that Maricopa County violated the constitutional spending limits for FY23, FY24 or FY25 where spending was reported up to or nearly at the constitutional limit – yet excluded all costs MCSO attributed to Melendres,” the report says.

The report says MCSO has consistently overstated compliance costs for the past 12 years, a span that covers four sheriffs: Arpaio, Paul Penzone, Russ Skinner and current Sheriff Jerry Sheridan.

The list of expenses flagged for being improperly attributed includes spending on golf carts, horse patrol training, unrelated IT services, stun guns and car washes.

How did MCSO, county respond to findings?

MCSO issued the following statement when contacted by KTAR News 92.3 FM on Thursday: “We received the report yesterday afternoon, and our attorneys and experts are reviewing it to determine areas of common ground and any findings we may dispute.”

“We have found discrepancies within the monitor’s budget analyst report, which we are continuing to review and will address in the future. However, if we accept their report’s stated total expense of $62 million, it is unclear why the costs paid to the monitor team — totaling $34 million to date (more than half of the reported expense) — and the legal expenses incurred over the past decade were excluded. These two significant and undisputed expenses were not included in the report,” Sheridan said in statement released later Thursday.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is also reviewing the report and plans to respond to the judge in the case, Chairman Thomas Galvin said in a statement.

“The board has confidence in MCSO’s budgeting team and will respond accordingly,” Galvin said.

ACLU of Arizona, which helped bring the racial-profiling lawsuit that led to the ongoing court-ordered oversight, accused MCSO of purposely submitting falsified expense reports in an effort to avoid making court-ordered reforms.

“Reforms in Ortega Melendres started with MCSO dragging its heels on compliance instead of just fixing the constitutional problems. All the while, the community has been paying the price for their misconduct, both financially and through real human harm,” Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy director of the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project, said in a press release.

After a 2012 trial, a federal judge ruled that MCSO violated the rights of Hispanic drivers by engaging in racial profiling and conducting unlawful traffic stops. Compliance orders were issued in 2013.

The Melendres case reportedly has cost metro Phoenix taxpayers more than a quarter-billion dollars, but that amount is now in question.

MCSO has been pushing to end court-ordered oversight

It’s too soon to tell how the new report will affect the county’s effort to end the court-ordered oversight of the Melendres case.

In March, Sheridan said MCSO was working with the ACLU, the Department of Justice and the court monitor to get out from under the compliance.

“The behavior that caused the Melendres lawsuit … happened in 2008. Well, it’s 2025 now. We need to get beyond that,” he told KTAR News’ The Mike Broomhead Show.

Galvin has voiced his desire the end the oversight multiple times.

“I see this as an assault on federalism, which is an important issue for us as Americans because we love our Constitution and this is how the founding fathers set up our country. I also see it as a quiet tyranny on public safety,” he told The Mike Broomhead Show last month.

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Balin Overstolz McNair contributed to this report.

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