7-Year Sentence for Former Antioch Police Officer Stands Out Among East Bay Officers’ Cases

A former Antioch police officer who was found guilty of using excessive force with his police K-9 has been sentenced to seven years in prison, marking one of the longest sentences in recent years among East Bay officers convicted of on-duty crimes.

Morteza Amiri, 34, was convicted in March of violating a man’s civil rights through excessive force and falsifying records related to the incident, and in a separate trial last August, he was convicted of committing wire fraud by faking a college degree to earn wage bumps and monetary incentives at work.

Amiri’s sentence was decided Tuesday afternoon by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, who presided over both of his federal criminal trials and said the former officer abused his power as a law enforcement official, noting offensive text messages he exchanged in group chats with other officers.

The charges against him followed a sprawling FBI investigation into two East Bay police departments that unveiled widespread corruption and patterns of racism and excessive force by officers.

“Amiri betrayed the public’s trust, abused his authority, and violated the civil rights of a person he was sworn to protect,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani said in a statement. “Today’s sentence sends a clear message: no badge is a shield from accountability.”

Hundreds of messages Amiri sent and received were reviewed during his eight-day civil rights trial in March, where prosecutors attempted to prove that he had conspired with other former officers to use excessive force against victims repeatedly over a three-year period.

Amiri was acquitted of the conspiracy charge, along with two other alleged displays of excessive force by the dog in a split verdict.

He was found guilty of deploying the K-9, Purcy, after pulling over a man on a bike in 2019, who, according to Amiri, did not have his bike light on.

After approaching the man, who testified during Amiri’s trial that he was punched to the ground, Amiri called for his K-9 to be deployed.

In later texts, he called his approach to the victim “a stretch.”

That charge carried up to a 10-year sentence, and falsifying the related report — which omitted that his roommate, a Pittsburg police officer, was riding along — could have garnered up to 20.

In a related trial last August, he was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud and defrauding the Antioch Police Department by paying someone to complete a bachelor’s degree under his name, earning him a pay bump and other financial incentives.

Each of those charges carried a sentence of up to 20 years.

The sentence handed down by White on Tuesday considered several factors, he said, including an appeal from Amiri’s attorney, Paul Goyette, that he has been productive since being remanded into custody in mid-March pending his sentencing.

Goyette wrote in a briefing that Amiri had taken courses in parenting, substance use recovery, emotional intelligence and improving judgment and decision making, among others. He has also begun treatment for PTSD, which he was diagnosed with in 2023.

Dozens of family members and former colleagues also wrote letters of support for Amiri, urging a lighter sentence.

Still, White said during the sentencing that “the court cannot ignore the pleasure Mr. Amiri seemed to take in the attack [that he was convicted of],” according to the Mercury News. 

“He is a danger to the community,” White continued.

In addition to the seven-year prison term, Amiri was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay a combined restitution of nearly $14,000 to the victim of his civil rights violation and the city of Antioch.

Goyette told KQED he was disappointed but not surprised by the sentence, and said his team planned to appeal. He noted that as a former police officer, Amiri has spent the months of his custody thus far mostly in solitary confinement, out of concerns for his safety.

Fellow former officer Devon Wenger, whose civil rights trial was originally happening in tandem with Amiri’s but resulted in a mistrial three days in, will go back on trial for the alleged crimes in August.