TORONTO -- Toronto police, acting on information from Maricopa County sheriff's detectives, arrested a convicted felon over the weekend for allegedly threatening to kill Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his family for a $250,000 bounty, the sheriff's office said Monday.

The threat against Arpaio was made through the sheriff's Web site on June 2, authorities said.

The sheriff's office said Matthew Sanderson, 37, a Canadian native, allegedly told Arpaio that he would be murdered in dramatic, memorable fashion.

"I can chose to put a bullet in your head or in your heart, poison you, blow up your car or burn you alive, Joe," the threat read.

Authorities said a group was allegedly paying Sanderson more than a quarter million dollars to kill the sheriff sometime in the next two years.

Arpaio told CBS 5 News Monday afternoon that the nature of his job attracts threats such as these. "Actually, I'm safer in jail than I am on the outside sometimes," Arpaio said.

The sheriff's office said Sanderson allegedly used high-tech methods to avoid detection. Sanderson is accused of creating a sophisticated web of communications to the sheriff from computers located in Canada and the U.S. to skirt under the radar, according to detectives.

Sheriff's detectives said they were able to determine that Sanderson allegedly made the threat from inside Canada while making it appear as though the crime originated from a Des Moines, Iowa, school district computer.

Detectives, armed with search warrants, said they seized three desktop computers, one laptop computer, a server and a law enforcement badge and phony identification from the man's Toronto residence.

Toronto police are conducting forensic tests on Sanderson's computers.

"The question we are asking is why Sanderson felt such hatred towards the sheriff that he would plan to kill him and his family," said Jesse Locksa, the chief of special operations.

Sanderson accused the sheriff of being a "disgusting person who violates, tortures and hurts too many Americans" and that the "CIA, FBI or Homeland Security" would not be able to protect Arpaio from harm, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.

Sanderson has an extensive criminal background in Canada and served time in a New York prison for impersonation, criminal weapons possession and forgery, authorities said.

After his sentence, he was paroled in 1999 with the condition he be deported back to Canada.