By Nate Gartrell
Bay Area News Group
OAKLAND, Calif. — Devon Wenger, a former Antioch policeman, was sentenced Tuesday to seven-and-a-half-years in federal jail for scheming to offer different cops steroids and conspiring to violate the rights of individuals he was supposed to guard and serve.
The sentence, handed handed down Tuesday afternoon by Senior U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, is the harshest to date given to any of the 14 ex-East Contra Costa cops charged in 2023 as a part of an enormous police corruption scandal. White mentioned he was baffled by the stark distinction between Wenger’s in any other case “courageous, otherwise law-abiding, otherwise respectful of the law” with the “terror visited upon members of the Antioch community.”
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White mentioned he was additionally shocked that all through Wenger’s case, “I have not heard one word from anybody about some sort of feeling for these victims, who were victims of the defendant’s crimes.” He added he feared the police neighborhood at-large hasn’t “gotten the word” that there can be repercussions for officers who violate their oath of service.
“He needs to be deterred from doing these kids of acts,” White mentioned, as considered one of Wenger’s supporters scoffed from the courtroom gallery.
Wenger didn’t tackle the court docket, citing his pending enchantment.
Wenger’s lawyer, Michael Schwartz, requested for a three-year jail time period. Prosecutors needed 9 years, arguing Wenger falsified police studies and obstructed justice to cowl up his crimes and stays insistent that he didn’t do something mistaken.
“He was supposed to obey the law and not break it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Shepard mentioned on the listening to. She quoted his texts with different officers about wanting to harm folks and mentioned that contrasted with the letters of help from his family members who view him in roundly optimistic phrases.
“In the Antioch community he was someone else,” Shepard mentioned, recounting how he “smashed” a girl’s head right into a police automotive and “conspired” to distribute medication and use “excessive force.”
Schwartz argued that such a excessive sentence can be unfair, as a result of Wenger’s co-defendant, ex-Antioch police K9 Officer Morteza Amiri, was given a much less harsh sentence for the same conviction. He urged Wenger sought “mentorship” from the very colleagues who ended up in court docket beside him as co-defendants.
“The one he was looking for mentorship from, the one who was actually convicted of in many ways a worse crime. (Amiri) should not get a lesser sentence than Wenger,” Schwartz mentioned, later including, “He doesn’t need the court to give him a harsh sentence. To be quite blunt, everything he worked for is gone.”
Wenger was considered one of 14 ex-Antioch and Pittsburg cops charged in both federal or state court docket with a variety of offenses. He was convicted in a single trial of distributing steroids, and in one other of conspiring to violate peoples’ civil rights. Technically, his most critical offense is for altering information — deleting texts on this case — to intervene with the steroids investigation, as federal legislation locations the next penalty on destroying a doc than cases when police betray their oath and injure folks with out trigger.
Other officers had been charged with accepting bribes, scheming to get fraudulent pay raises, interfering with a wiretap investigation and firearm offenses.
All of the 14, besides Wenger and Amiri pleaded responsible or no contest, and several other ended up cooperating with the federal government. Amiri was sentenced to seven years for violating a person’s civil rights with a K9 chunk, and involvement in a university diploma fraud conspiracy.
In asking for a nine-year jail sentence, prosecutors cited plenty of incidents of police violence by both Amiri or Wenger, together with acts that Amiri was acquitted of at his trial earlier this yr. Schwartz countered that Amiri’s acquittal absolves Wenger of something dedicated by Amiri, disregarding the federal government’s proof that Amiri and Wenger had texted about wanting to make use of pressure on folks.
“There can’t be a conspiracy with just my client and Mr. Amiri because Mr. Amiri didn’t conspire with anybody, according to this evidence and a jury,” Schwartz mentioned.
Prosecutors rebutted his argument, saying federal legislation makes it clear that every particular person’s position in an alleged conspiracy have to be judged individually. White agreed, stating that it appeared Wenger’s lawyer was making an attempt to re-hash arguments he made at trial.
A probation report quotes Wenger saying he “is hopeful that his convictions will be overturned on appeal,” and “wants to return to active military service and complete his special forces training,” in line with a prosecution sentencing memo.
Schwartz referenced Wenger’s navy service in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a mitigating issue.
“My client served his county in the military, and he served it well,” Schwartz mentioned, and mentioned his public service “before” the offenses must be thought-about. “He risked his life for our country, he risked his life on the streets.”
In the steroids case, Wenger was convicted of arranging to purchase steroids for private use and to offer them to different cops, based mostly on textual content messages and the testimony of different friends in legislation enforcement, together with a co-defendant, ex-Antioch Officer Daniel Harris. Wenger has insisted that he by no means organized to purchase steroids, accusing a Contra Costa DA inspector of “injecting” faux messages into his cellphone.
The incidents cited by prosecutors embody one in 2019, when Wenger broke a girl’s arm and smashed her sister’s face into the aspect of a police automotive, whereas investigating shoplifting. Later, he instructed former Antioch Officer Eric Rombough “the (expletive) got what she deserved,” in line with prosecutors. One of the ladies watched Wenger’s sentencing listening to from the courtroom galley.
Schwartz, countered that there was strong proof one of many sisters had “fought” officers and “struck my client several times” in the course of the arrest however that there was no documentation both had been injured.
At the beginning of 2025, Wenger and Amiri had been set to go to trial collectively. Just days into it, Wenger’s lawyer, Nicole Lopes, insisted on a mistrial, stating she was overwhelmed by lack of help and her personal private struggles. White granted the mistrial however later accused Lopes of “lack of candor” with the court docket after she appeared on a podcast and — in line with White — contradicted what she’d instructed him in a sealed court docket listening to. White later eliminated Lopes from the case and Wenger was given a brand new lawyer.
During his second trial, White dismissed one depend towards Wenger, involving the usage of a less-lethal gun on a suspected automotive thief. The jury convicted Wenger of conspiracy the next day.
Wenger has lengthy maintained that he was focused for prosecution not as a result of he dedicated crimes, however as a result of he tried to reveal the wrongdoings of colleagues, together with Rombough, a co-defendant who ended up pleading responsible and testifying towards each Wenger and Amiri.
White referenced this, noting that Wenger appears to imagine “this trash” that “somehow everyone is to blame for his conviction except him.”
“I don’t buy that for one minute … I do not believe that in any way, shape, or form that he was the victim of illegal behavior, as he charges,” White mentioned, later including, “Make no mistake, he was not framed.”
White additionally famous that some non-public paperwork had been leaked to a reporter, regardless of a court docket order limiting their distribution to Wenger and his varied attorneys.
“I will get to the bottom of that,” White pledged.
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