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Published on November 27, 2007 at 6:26pm

The charges were later dropped, but Tarr's lawsuit against the sheriff is still pending.


Jim Cozzolino wasn't really a political guy, but he had friends in law enforcement. So, when Tom Bearup ran against Arpaio, he asked Cozzolino to help with his campaign. And when Bobby Ayala challenged the sheriff in 2000, Cozzolino served as his campaign manager.

Next thing Cozzolino knew, his phone was tapped. His trash was regularly rifled by Arpaio's fledgling threat-assessment squad. And he was accused of making a death threat to Arpaio over the sheriff's radio frequency.

The death-threat case fell apart. And although Arpaio got a search warrant to investigate Cozzolino, the prosecutor never charged Cozzolino with a crime.

Three years later, Cozzolino made the mistake of giving the sheriff a chance to go after him again.

At the time, Cozzolino owned a Fountain Hills bowling alley. One night, a drunken employee was harassing a female coworker to the point of choking her. Cozzolino intervened, but was thrown to the ground by the much-larger man. He drew a gun and ordered the man to stop. A scuffle ensued, and Cozzolino's gun went off.

No one was injured, but the deputies who were summoned to the scene didn't seem to care.

"Jim was the one who tried to save me," Melody Nordman, the female employee, would later tell New Times. "But they made it clear they would have none of that idea. It was clear they wanted Jim's head."

Cozzolino was charged with attempted murder. The sheriff used that charge as an excuse to seize Cozzolino's car, claiming it might have been stolen. Arpaio didn't even bother with a search warrant.

Cozzolino eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of illegal discharge of a firearm.

But Arpaio, true to form, wrote a letter to the judge arguing that Cozzolino should get the maximum penalty: eight years in prison. Not because discharging his gun was so awful, but because, Arpaio wrote, Cozzolino wanted to kill him. "[I]n his own warped way, [he] actually believes that he will become a hero by assassinating me," Arpaio wrote. "The threat of assassination, like assassination itself, should not be taken lightly."

The judge gave Cozzolino four months in jail — Arpaio's jail. While there, deputies stripped Cozzolino of his work-release privileges after he tested positive for crystal meth. Only after a deputy blew the whistle was Cozzolino able to get a second test showing he was free of drugs. He'd been set up.

After serving his time, Cozzolino sued Arpaio in federal court. The sheriff argued that the suit should be dismissed because, as a public official, he's immune from liability for doing his official duties.

Interestingly, Arpaio never disputed allegations that he'd sent deputies to tap Cozzolino's phone. He argued that doing so was not "highly offensive." As for seizing Cozzolino's car, and faking drug tests, he argued that these actions were "related to legitimate police activity."

The judge would have none of it.

"Without attempting to justify their seizure of the car or explain the circumstances of the drug tests, material facts exist as to whether these incidents were, in fact, 'related to legitimate police activity' and therefore not in violation of [Cozzolino's] constitutional rights," wrote U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Martone.

Arpaio settled the suit with Cozzolino soon thereafter.


Compared with what happened to Jim Cozzolino, what happened to Lee Watkins wasn't so bad. The sheriff still hasn't managed to arrest Watkins, after all. It was only Watkins' business that was destroyed.

Watkins is a player in Republican circles, and GOP candidates know to hit him up for fundraising. A pivotal backer in Evan Mecham's shocking gubernatorial victory in 1986, Watkins went to work for Mecham after the election.

After the impeached Mecham was driven out of office, Watkins became persona non grata. "I couldn't get a job at a car wash," he says.

So he started a towing business with two trucks. By 2004, he had 28, and his Cactus Towing was the biggest firm of its kind in the East Valley.

Watkins never hesitated to give money to politicians he liked and, for a while, that group included Arpaio. Then, an old friend, local radio personality W. Steven Martin, announced that he was challenging Arpaio in the 2004 election. Watkins told Arpaio that he was supporting Martin.

"I guess you're going to take your chances," Watkins quoted the sheriff as saying.

"I should have known right then," Watkins says now.

It wasn't even a year later when Ron McClure contacted the Sheriff's Office. McClure, who owned a rival tow firm, told a deputy that Watkins was engaging in unethical practices. He put the detectives in touch with two former Cactus employees who elaborated on the complaint. (Cactus had previously taken out a restraining order against one of the men.)

In April 2005, a manager at Cactus awoke to deputies banging on his front door at 4:30 in the morning. The deputies put the man's school-age children into a room alone and ordered their mother, in her nightgown, into a squad car. The deputies then seized box after box of "evidence" — including homework and Little League photos.

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