Right Wing Watch
October 23, 2018
Larry Klayman, a right-wing activist and attorney, and “Sheriff Joe” Arpaio, a failed Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona, have filed a legal complaint against The New York Times alleging that the paper defamed Arpaio by publishing a column about his loss in which writer Michelle Cottle, a member of the Times’ editorial board, called Arpaio a “sadistic man.” The lawsuit seeks $147.5 million in damages.
The complaint, filed and published on Klayman’s website yesterday, asserts that while the column “is strategically titled as an opinion piece” it asserts that Arpaio “was directly responsible for numerous inmate deaths during his time as sheriff of Maricopa County” and was “directly responsible for numerous abused, assaulted, and battered inmates during his time as sheriff of Maricopa County.”