Ex-Antioch Cop Guilty of Conspiracy Deprived Citizens of Civil Rights, Jury Finds

A former Antioch police officer was found guilty Wednesday of conspiring to use excessive force against residents in one of the final verdicts expected to come out of a long-running probe into corruption, racism and excessive force in two East Bay police departments.

A jury in Oakland found that Devon Christopher Wenger conspired with other former officers, Morteza Amiri and Eric Rombough, to deprive residents of their civil rights.

The case relied heavily on a trove of text messages the officers exchanged about beating and illegally using weapons, and Amiri’s police K–9 against people.

The conspiracy to violate civil rights conviction carries a maximum 10-year sentence.

Wenger originally stood trial for conspiracy and use of excessive force against 31-year-old Dajon Smith in March 2021, but Judge Jeffrey S. White declared a mistrial just days into the proceedings. During his new trial, which opened last week, White cleared Wenger of the excessive force charge, telling the jury that he had determined that the 2021 incident, when Wenger shot Smith with a foam baton round, was “reasonable,” the East Bay Times reported.

In April, Wenger was also found guilty of planning to distribute steroids and destroying evidence while the FBI was at his door. He is still awaiting sentencing for those crimes, which could result in a maximum of 30 years in prison.

Thursday’s verdict marks the beginning of the end of the scandal that rocked Contra Costa County law enforcement in 2023, when an FBI investigation into criminal activity in Antioch’s police department unearthed a trove of racist and misogynistic text messages and led to a variety of charges against 14 former Antioch and Pittsburg officers.

The other thirteen officers have been convicted of crimes ranging from excessive force to distribution of steroids and fraud for faking college degrees to get pay raises.

Amiri and Wenger originally stood trial for the conspiracy charge together in March, but when Wenger’s mistrial was declared, his trial continued. That jury acquitted Amiri of the conspiracy charge, though he was found guilty of using excessive force when he deployed his K–9, Purcy, on a man unnecessarily in 2019 and later falsified records of the incident. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for those crimes in June.

Days before his mistrial earlier this year, Wenger, who continues to maintain his innocence, sued the Antioch Police Department, accusing APD and higher-ups of retaliation after he claimed to have reported harassment and tried to expose discrimination at the department.

That suit is still pending.