For six Antioch cops hit with felony fees in August, the year-plus FBI probe into corruption, misconduct and misdeeds amounted to months of trip funded from metropolis coffers.
Positioned on paid depart after the town was alerted to allegedly unlawful habits, one of many officers relocated to Hawaii. One other threw a pool celebration. All collected paychecks for months whereas awaiting decision of the investigation, information and sources say.
By the point they had been charged final month, the officers — Morteza Amiri, Calvin Prieto, Andrea Rodriguez, Eric Rombough, Devon Wenger and Ben Padilla — had obtained a mixed $1.79 million in pay and advantages relationship again to January 2022, in line with payroll information launched on the request of this information group.
In a brief assertion, Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe — who publicly known as for the officers to be fired all through 2023 — urged the officers to reimburse the town for the cash they earned whereas below investigation.
“These {dollars} weren’t earned and must be returned to the taxpayers of our metropolis,” Thorpe mentioned Friday.
The six officers had been amongst 14 present and former Antioch and Pittsburg officers charged in 4 federal indictments and 4 native felony complaints, with allegations starting from main civil rights violations — together with assaulting residents, principally these of coloration, for sport — to accepting tequila bottles as bribes to do away with site visitors tickets.
One other three of the 14 officers — all from Antioch — had voluntarily departed at earlier dates throughout the probe. Not like Antioch, the town of Pittsburg — which had three officers ensnared within the investigation — confronted its allegedly crooked officers nonetheless employed by the company with proof of wrongdoing, they usually resigned final 12 months, a number of regulation enforcement sources mentioned. The opposite two Pittsburg officers charged had already left when the investigation started.
Because the fees had been filed, the town has shifted the indicted officers nonetheless working on the company to unpaid depart and is now in search of to terminate them.
After receiving letters of the town’s intent, officers have as much as 10 days to request a so-called Skelly listening to, a chance for them to refute these fees. A number of sources together with Councilmember Tamisha Torres-Walker have mentioned Amiri, Prieto and Rodriguez obtained such letters, whereas Wenger resigned earlier this 12 months, and Rombough’s employment ended after he was charged, although it’s not clear whether or not he resigned or just agreed to not contest his termination. The circumstances of Padilla’s present employment couldn’t be confirmed.
Attorneys for Rombough, Amiri and the town’s police union didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Torres-Walker mentioned that between August and September, 5 letters-of-intent-to-terminate went out to Antioch cops on depart. That features Prieto and Rodriguez, who’ve sued Torres-Walker for publicly blasting them on social media after an incident during which the officers detained her two sons. Prieto and Rodriguez, together with Padilla, are accused of accepting meals and tequila to quash site visitors tickets.
“I don’t know if all had been fired, however everybody who was indicted or dealing with felony fees was terminated,” she mentioned, referring to the officers nonetheless with the division on the time of the fees.
Appearing Metropolis Supervisor Kwame Reed had no remark aside from to say “the method is ongoing.”
Town has refused to determine when every officer was positioned on depart, however some together with Amiri and Rombough had been placed on paid depart in early 2022, in line with a number of regulation enforcement sources, after federal brokers and Contra Costa District Lawyer inspectors served search warrants at a number of officers’ houses and on the Antioch Police Division, seizing cellphones and different proof from them. They remained on depart whereas a grand jury weighed felony fees towards them.
The payroll information additionally present that the town has paid a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} to officers presently on depart whereas below inside investigation for sending racist, sexist and homophobic textual content messages, together with repeated use of racial slurs and remarks the place some officers admitted to racial profiling. The investigation into the textual content messages — which concerned 44 officers, nearly half of the division — stays open. Antioch police have up to now refused to substantiate what number of of these officers had been placed on depart.
Earlier this 12 months, the Antioch Police Division issued paperwork saying that a number of officers — together with Amiri and Rombough — had been on “industrial damage depart” and subsequently couldn’t be subpoenaed to testify in a pending homicide case. The defense-issued subpoenas sought officers’ testimony about racism inside the division, which a decide finally dominated wasn’t crucial. Protection attorneys mentioned a number of of the officers had been seen working equipment, throwing a pool throughout the course of their leaves.
Sean Patrick Farley, a non-public investigator working for one of many protection attorneys, informed this information group that whereas serving subpoenas he noticed Rombough climbing down from his raised 4×4 truck after choosing up his baby from faculty, close to his Mediterranean-style house in Fairfield’s pastoral Inexperienced Valley. And when Farley and his associate visited Amiri’s five-bedroom home as sounds of a pool celebration drifted in from the yard, Amiri hid inside whereas his spouse, wearing a seaside coverup, implored the duo to please “don’t embarrass our company” and depart.
“No matter medical points that had been occurring with him that had been stopping him from attending courtroom, they actually weren’t stopping him from having a barbecue and social occasion with numerous household and buddies,” Farley mentioned in an interview with this information group.
“If we’re now at some extent the place it’s time to reply to your crime and the reply to that’s, ‘Nicely, they’re injured and we’re gonna provide them their pensions and ship them house with protected protection for his or her household,’ how does the group reply to that?” Farley requested. “The place’s the extent of belief? The place does it cease?”
Amiri’s pay consists of an incentive pay bump the division offers college-educated officers — a pay enhance federal prosecutors say he obtained by getting a lady to fraudulently take on-line programs for him. Whereas the FBI was investigating whether or not Amiri illegally obtained this 5 p.c increase — and a federal grand jury finally determined there was sufficient proof he had — Amiri obtained $353,440.60 in wage and advantages, the information present.
Rombough made $309,287 in pay and advantages over the identical interval, in line with information.
Different indicted Antioch officers left the division whereas the FBI investigation was pending, together with Officer Daniel Harris, who’s accused of steroid distribution, and Neighborhood Service Officer Samantha Peterson, who’s accused of the alleged diploma scheme. Officer Timothy Manly Williams, who’s charged with interfering with a wiretap investigation, left effectively beforehand in mid-2021.
Wenger resigned earlier this 12 months however not till after he obtained $73,766.01 in gross pay whereas on administrative depart, information present. By the point the FBI went trying to arrest him on fees of steroid distribution and conspiracy to violate civil rights, he had left the Bay Space for Hawaii, courtroom information present.
Lots of the officers are actually unable to hunt different regulation enforcement jobs after being decertified by a state oversight company. These embrace Amiri, Rombough, Wenger, Harris, Manly Williams, in addition to former Pittsburg officers Ernesto Mejia-Orozco, Amanda Nash, Patrick Berhan, Brauli Rodriguez-Jalapa and Armando Montalvo, who’ve all been criminally charged.