YOUR tax dollars: How much does it cost to defend the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office?
According to Maricopa County Risk Management records, almost 6,300 claims and lawsuits have been filed against Sheriff Arpaio and his office since he began as sheriff in 1993.
The cost to defend those cases has been more than $50 million.
Part of that $50 million has gone to defend more than 5,000 cases which were closed with no payout to the plaintiff.
But of the total 6,300 case, there have been 1,828 lawsuits against the sheriff's office, according to a national lawsuit database.
To put that into perspective, the ABC15 Investigators also searched Harris County in Texas which includes Houston. Harris County is almost the same size in population to Maricopa County.
There are only 283 lawsuits listed under the Harris County Sheriff's Office for the same 17 year period. Maricopa County has about six times more.