CBS News
December 13, 2018
Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio filed a defamation lawsuit seeking $300 million in damages against three news organizations, saying their inaccurate references to his criminal conviction have hurt his chances at possibly running in for the Senate seat that was held by John McCain.
The lawsuit, filed in Washington, alleges that CNN, Huffington Post and Rolling Stone acted with malice by publishing statements they knew were not true. In the suit, Arpaio says CNN did not make any effort to correct a statement by anchor Chris Cuomo in a January broadcast that said he was a convicted felon. Arpaio’s 2017 criminal contempt of court conviction — for disobeying a judge’s order to stop his immigration patrols — was a misdemeanor, rather than a felony.