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Registered
Prosecutors say Arpaio violated the order so he could promote his immigration enforcement efforts in an effort to boost his 2012 re-election campaign.
Arpaio was barred in December 2011 from conducting immigration patrols by a federal judge who was presiding over a racial profiling case.
The efforts are similar to local immigration enforcement that President Donald Trump has advocated. To build his highly touted deportation force, Trump is reviving a long-standing program that deputizes local officers to enforce federal immigration law.
Arpaio's immigration powers were eventually stripped away by the courts and federal government.
The contempt-of-court case marked the first time federal authorities had prosecuted Arpaio on a criminal charge, though his office had been the subject of past investigations.
Trump used some of the same immigration rhetoric that helped make Arpaio a national figure in the debate over the U.S.-Mexico border. Arpaio was a Trump supporter, who was known as a racist, and anti-immigrant sheriff . He made prison life unbearable for many immigrants , and seemed to enjoy that the prisoners suffered.
"What was a lark to him in going after undocumented immigrants was terrible, not only for the people he hurt but also for his own agency and his career," Wang said. "His career will go down as ending with his conviction."
