In October 2007, Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin, the founders and leaders of the "Phoenix New Times", were arrested after publishing a news article on a grand jury investigation involving Arpaio's office. On the evening that the article was published, Lacey and Larkin were arrested by plainclothes sheriff's deputies, "handcuffed, put in dark SUVs with tinted windows and driven to jail." Following a public uproar over the arrests, all charges were dropped against Lacey and Larkin. Lacey and Larkin filed a federal Section 1983 lawsuit for the violations of their civil rights, and in 2012 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that they could sue the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for the arrests. In 2013, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted to settle the suit for $3.75 million. Lacey and Larkin used the proceeds of the settlement to establish an endowed chair professorship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and to establish the Lacey & Larkin Frontera Fund, which advocates for migrant rights and freedom of speech issues in Arizona.