IIRC @Cyber Liberty has the lowdown on that who animal cruelty story.
Yes, I can,
@txradioguy. Mrs. Liberty emailed this to me last night.
What initially happened is Jeff Flake's kid, Austin, and Austin's now divorced wife were care-taking an upscale dog kennel in Gilbert called "Green Acres." In June of 2014, the air conditioning failed in the room housing the dogs, and it got very warm, hot enough to kill all 23 dogs in their care. In Arizona, outdoor temperatures are typically over 110 F in June.
Arpaio investigated the deaths, and recommended prosecution for 21 counts of animal cruelty, but the Prosecutor moved to dismiss the charges. There were shenanigans, because the Prosecutor lied to the dog owners about the date of the court appearance where they could make statements, and as a result the Judge threw the case out because nobody was there to testify for the dogs. No biggie (for the Judge and Prosecutor, anyway). I think this happened because the sitting Senator pulled strings with the Republican Prosecutor for his kid, but that's just Cyber's opinion.
(I got the above synopsis from the Bookface page that was created by the group of owners of the dogs, in addition to contemporary news accounts, so YMMV.)
Last December, after it became obvious he was going to lose in the Senate Primary this year and withdrew, he decided to sue Arpaio for malicious prosecution (After all, everybody hates him now, right?), blaming his political fall from grace on the evil Sheriff. (For those who have not been paying attention, Flake is the Hillary Clinton of the Republican Senate. Nothing is ever his fault.) Within a few minutes of the opening of the trial, the Judge dismissed it because it failed on the merits.
The latest story above is Flake is filing to reopen the civil case against Arpaio, claiming evidence was withheld. I have not looked at the stories about this development, so I can't say if there is any merit to the claims.
