By Michael Kiefer and Michelle Ye Hee Lee | The Republic | azcentral.com
In November 2008, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas fired the first shot in their war against county judges and officials by indicting former county Supervisor Don Stapley on criminal charges — charges that collapsed like a phony land deal.
Before their so-called crusade against government corruption was stopped by the courts, the law-enforcement officials had filed a second set of criminal charges against Stapley as well as charges against another sitting county supervisor and a Superior Court judge, and they had had filed a civil racketeering lawsuit against those and other county officials and judges.
By March 2010, all of the charges and the racketeering suits were dismissed.
