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PHOENIX — An attorney for Maricopa County Superintendent of Schools Sandra Dowling has filed his intent to sue the county and Sheriff Joe Arpaio for $1.75 million.

In a notice of claim filed Thursday, attorney Michael Manning accuses Arpaio and the Board of Supervisors of malicious prosecution because of a three-year criminal investigation that ended with Dowling pleading to a misdemeanor charge.

While embroiled in lawsuits over the finances and operation of the Thomas J. Pappas Schools for homeless children, a sheriff's SWAT team and helicopters descended on Dowling's home in 2006 and meticulously searched it.

"The SWAT squad was not in search of a meth lab, Islamic terrorists, or even brown-skinned aliens," the notice said. "They were not there to execute one or two of the 40,000 felony warrants that languished back at MCSO headquarters. It was the home of Dr. Sandra Dowling and her husband, Dennis."

Dowling was indicted on 25 felony counts, including theft of $1.8 million and misuse of millions more related to the homeless schools.

All counts had been thrown out by July, and Dowling pleaded guilty to an unrelated misdemeanor count of nepotism for hiring her daughter for a minimum-wage summer job. She was sentenced to four months' probation and the trial judge refused the county's request that she pay restitution.

"To say that the last three years have been the worst three years that my family has spent would be an understatement," Dowling said Thursday.

A spokesman for the sheriff's office questioned why the claim accused the sheriff and the supervisors of malicious prosecution, when the actual prosecutors at the Arizona Attorney General's Office and later the U.S. Attorney's Office were not included in the claim.

"If this case against Mrs. Dowling didn't have merit, it wouldn't have been pursued by those individuals," sheriff's Chief Deputy Jack MacIntyre said.

Manning is arguing that the SWAT team raid and the subsequent prosecution were vengeful and politically motivated, and that Arpaio had maliciously done the bidding of the county supervisors when he conducted the raid.

In the claim, Manning says Dowling's reputation was tarnished and her health ruined by stress-related maladies, including depression, hypertension and adult-onset diabetes.

Dowling is still party to a lawsuit in which the county seeks to recover the $1.8 million it says she stole but which the criminal court said she did not. She said that she has already paid more than $200,000 in legal fees and had to borrow against the value of her home to pay those bills.