(Bloomberg) -- Joe Arpaio, once known as “America’s toughest sheriff,” failed to persuade a federal appeals court to wipe clean his criminal record after President Donald Trump pardoned him.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday refused a request by the former top lawman in Maricopa County, Arizona, to erase his guilty verdict for defying a judge’s orders related to his crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Arpaio made a name for himself targeting Latinos in the Phoenix area with traffic stops only on the suspicion they were undocumented immigrants. In 2017, a federal judge convicted him of criminal contempt of court for violating orders to stop the illegal detentions. Before he could be sentenced, however, Trump stepped in and granted a pardon.
The pardon was found by a judge to be valid, but Arpaio fought on to try to get his offense expunged from court records.
Read More: ‘America’s Toughest Sheriff’ Wants More From Trump Pardon
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Blumberg in San Francisco at pblumberg1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Anthony Lin
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