Court monitor report finds Maricopa County Sheriff's Office undermined racial-profiling settlement, retaliated against reform commander

On June 25, 2026, court monitor Robert Warshaw published an investigation finding that Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) leadership under Sheriff Jerry Sheridan committed a "disturbing pattern" of violations of the Melendres v. Arpaio racial profiling settlement, interfering with disciplinary processes and retaliating against the commander who refused to comply with improper directives.

U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow appointed Warshaw as monitor in 2014 to track MCSO's compliance with court-mandated reforms arising from the Melendres v. Arpaio class-action lawsuit, which found the department had systematically used traffic stops to racially profile Latino drivers and arrest them on immigration charges. The settlement requires MCSO to maintain proper internal oversight, including through its Professional Standards Bureau (PSB), which investigates reports of deputy misconduct. Prior Sheriff Joe Arpaio was held in criminal contempt in 2016 for defying court orders — a contempt finding that Sheridan himself shared, having been found in civil contempt that same year for denying knowledge of a stop-immigration-arrests order. Sheridan took office in January 2025 and pledged to see the reforms through.

The monitor's investigation, launched in 2025 and published June 25, 2026, found that Sheridan's command staff pressured PSB Commander Captain Gregory Lugo to reopen completed investigations of deputies placed on the Brady list and to consider weakening disciplinary policy to protect other accused deputies. When Lugo refused, MCSO placed him on administrative leave in April 2025, referred a criminal complaint against him to the Arizona Department of Public Safety — which closed the investigation without finding evidence of wrongdoing — and transferred him out of the bureau. A separate court-appointed investigator also cleared Lugo. The monitor concluded the stated reason for Lugo's transfer was "a pretext" and that it was taken in retaliation for his refusal to bend to the improper interference. As a direct result, the department's compliance rates fell: the internal oversight order dropped from 95% to 70%, and the order addressing investigation backlogs dropped from 88% to 68%. Maricopa County has spent approximately $350 million implementing court-mandated reforms; the county Board of Supervisors approved an additional $36 million for the coming fiscal year just three days before the monitor's report was published.