Russell Pearce responds to racist email claims

PHOENIX - Russell Pearce responded on Friday to reports that he wrote emails with racial overtones during the time he was drawing up Arizona's Immigration Law, known as SB 1070.

"The emails that I have seen that they are using were not written by me," said Pearce at a fundraiser for his re-election campaign tonight in Phoenix. 

"I forwarded them from a great Patriot and prolific author who used metaphors, didn't call anyone any names.  And they would have you believe they were said (by me) and it simply is not true."

The emails, allegedly written by Pearce, are part of the latest lawsuit filed by the ACLU, Valle del Sol and others trying to stop the remaining segment of SB 1070 from being put into place. A judge is supposed to make a ruling as soon as Monday.

Those emails include ones like, "I'm a racist because I don't want to be taxed to pay for a prison population comprised of mainly Hispanics, Latinos and Mexicans, or whatever else you whish to call them."

And another one that reads, "importing leper colonies and hoping you don't catch leprosy."

Pearce says the emails he knows of might have been forwarded by him but written by Rusty Woolridge, a writer who lives in Colorado.