Joe Arpaio Net Worth Career and Personal Life

In the next post, we will talk about a very known politician, Joe Arpaio. Joe is one of the most recognizable Republican personalities in the United States.

This man has a very long career that started back when he was young, and he still manages to constantly appear on the media. If you are interested in learning more about Joe Arpaio’s career, net worth, and personal life, this post will be perfect for you.

Early Life

Joseph Michael Arpaio was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on June 14, 1932. Both of Arpaio’s parents were from Lacedonia Italy, but he was raised only by his father due to his mother passing away while giving birth to him.

It seems like Joe Arpaio had a fairly normal childhood, he worked in his father’s business, an Italian grocery store, after school until he graduated and joined the army in 1950. He was part of the Medical Department in France until he was discharged in 1954 and moved back to the United States.

Career

Once Arpaio finished his duty in the U.S Army, he went to Washington D.C and started his policeman career, and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1957. There he worked as a special agent in the narcotics department and got to work with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for over 25 years.

Arpaio was released from the DEA in 1982 and started working in Starworld Travel Agency, where he met his wife Ava. In the agency, he sold passes for the Phoenix E. Space Rocket, which never got to happen.

His sheriff career began in 1992 when he was first elected as the 36th sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona after he won against Tom Agnos.

He was re-elected 4 times in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008, until he lost against Paul Penzone from the Democrat Party in the 2017 elections and all his policies were removed. During this time he started being called the title “America’s Toughest Sheriff”, which he gave to himself.

Joe Arpaio became a very known personality because of his radical measures regarding county jail and his takes on immigration law. He has been involved in many controversies since the beginning of his political career.

Though Arpaio has an extended career, his name is never related to good things, and has always been involved in multiple controversies due to his measures on immigration laws and his numerous crimes accusations. However, he still has a strong base of followers who agree with his policies.

In 2017, Arpaio pretended to fill in for Republican Senator Jeff Flake, running against Martha McSally and Kelli Ward, but he lost this election.

Three years later he announced he’s running in the 2020 Maricopa County Sheriff election saying “Watch out world! We are back!”. Still, he lost this time as well against his former right-hand Jerry Sheridan. He is expected to make a comeback in 2022, but it is highly improbable that he is reelected.

Controversies

• Joe Arpaio is one of the strongest believers in Barack Obama’s allegedly false birth certificate. He was one of the members of the investigation and continues to affirm the illegitimacy of the document to this day. 
• He was the creator of the infamous “Tent City” where inmates were forced to live in tents in the Arizona desert where the temperature can reach more than 50 degrees. Tent City was portrayed as a temporary extension of the Maricopa County Jail. Amnesty International made a couple of statements on the topic, saying that this measure was “not an adequate or humane alternative to housing inmates in suitable jail facilities” and was often compared to concentration camps. 
• In 1995 he imposed the use of chain gangs as a punishment in prisons, where inmates were forced to be chained together and perform physical work. 
• In 2000 Joe Arpaio was accused of failing to carry on an investigation on a case of a 14-year-old girl that was raped by her classmates. Shortly after it was reported a similar case, which he also dismissed. 
• Arpaio was the creator of the Jail Cam website that became famous in 2000, the site showed the inmates in real-time.
• In 2007, his department was compared to the white supremacist terrorist organization the Ku Klux Klan, to which he responded by saying that it was an honor. Later in 2012 took his statement back. 
• In 2010 Joe Arpaio was the biggest defender of Arizona’s SB1070 anti-illegal immigrant law that was being struck down throughout the nation by the U.S Supreme Court. 
• In 2012 he imposed vegetarian meals for inmates in order to save money, and a year later he decided to charge them $1 for each meal. 
• In 2013, he was accused of unjustly targeting Hispanics in conducting traffic stops.
• In 2017, Arpaio was convicted by a court and got a sentence of 6 months in jail but was released through a presidential pardon dictated by former president Donald Trump because of his age and the many years of “services” to the nation. 
• Joe Arpaio used to make inmates in Arizona wear pink underwear, he later stated that this was a strategy that had saved over $70,000. Shortly after he commercialized his own pink underwear with a “Go Joe” logo for $15 each.
• In 2019 Joe Arpaio sued The New York Times for $147.5 m for libel, which the paper asked the federal court to dismiss. 

Books

• America’s Toughest Sheriff: How We Can Win the War Against Crime – Joe Arpaio (1957)
• Joe’s Law: America’s Toughest Sheriff Takes on Illegal Immigration, Drugs, and Everything Else That Threatens America – Joe Arpaio (2008)

Joe Arpaio-Biography

Real Name	Joseph Michael Arpaio
Birth Date	June 14, 1932
Age	89
Birth Place	Springfield, Massachusetts, United States.
Nationality	American
Profession	Former law enforcement officer and politician
Religion	Episcopal
Sun sign	Gemini

Physical statistics

Height	5 feet 7 inches 171 cm
Weight	189 lbs 86 kg
Chest Size	Unknown
Waist Size	Unknown
Biceps Size	Unknown
Shoe Size	Unknown
Hair Color	Gray
Eye Color	Black
Body Type	Chubby
Sexual Orientation	Straight

Qualification/Education

School	Unknown
College	None

Family

Father	Nicola Arpaio
Mother	Unknown
Sister	None
Brother	None

Relationship status

What is Joe Arpaio’s Marital Status?	Widowed
Is Joe Arpaio having any relationship affairs?	Unknown
Is Joe Arpaio gay?	No
Who is Joe Arpaio’s spouse?	Ava Lam
How many children does Joe Arpaio have?	2

Joe Arpaio-Personal life

Joe Arpaio married Ava Lam in 1956, they had two kids and four grandchildren. His wife died in 2021. The couple met after Arpaio left the DEA and started working on a traveling agency in Arizona.

Ava remained by Joe’s side regardless of all the racial and unhumanitarian accusations about his career.

There is not much about Joe Arpaio’s personal life, other than he used to live a modest life with his wife in Fountain Hills, Arizona until she passed away in March 2021, after many years of fighting cancer.

He is not expected to get married again. As of today, he remains living in the same residency. Arpaio is active on Facebook and Twitter, he has over 671.3k and 99.8k followers respectively, but he doesn’t use Instagram.

Trivia 

• During his time as a sheriff, Joe Arpaio was profiled by worldwide media more than 200 times each month. 
• Joe Arpaio was re-elected for six terms as sheriff. 
• He appeared on the reality show “Smile… You’re Under Arrest!” in 2008.
• Joe Arpaio used to sell pink underwear that said “Go Joe”
• Arpaio has been accused multiple times of violating America’s civil rights, especially against immigrants and inmates. 
• He was pardoned by Donald Trump in 2017.
• In 2019, Joe Arpaio’s wife, Ava, was bitten by a rattlesnake in her foot at their Fountain Hills home and had to rush to the hospital. 
• He was featured in
• Sacha Baron Cohen’s spoof TV comedy “Who Is America?” discussing gun control in 2018. 

Final Thoughts

It seems like the current year will be busy for Joe Arpaio since he plans to run to be re-elected as sheriff in the upcoming elections of 2022, even though he is 89 years old. Meanwhile, you can share this post about Joe’s career with all your friends, and if there happens to be an update on his net worth or his life, we will make sure to add it.