No Prison Time for 2 Former Antioch Cops Who Testified Against Colleagues

Two former Antioch police officers were sentenced Tuesday to time served or probation for federal charges, including widespread distribution of steroids among law enforcement officers and obstruction of justice in the investigation of a gang murder.

“The court believes it’s appropriate in this case to temper justice with mercy,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said from the bench in Oakland before handing down non-custodial sentences to the two men, who cooperated with federal prosecutors and testified against their colleagues.

White sentenced Timothy Manly Williams to probation for two obstruction-related charges and one charge of deprivation of rights under color of law. The judge sentenced Daniel Harris to time served on charges of conspiracy to distribute and possession of steroids, as well as one charge of bank fraud.

The sentences imposed on Tuesday conclude prosecutions for two of the final three defendants in a massive investigation of corruption and abuse of power by officers and non-sworn staff in the Antioch and Pittsburg police departments. In all, 10 former law enforcement employees across both departments were charged and either pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial.

The investigation started in May 2021 when a routine audit within the Antioch Police Department flagged a suspicious call made to a wiretapped suspect in an investigation of a gang-related murder. The call, it was found, came from the officer monitoring the wiretap — Manly Williams. He later told prosecutors that he wanted the suspect to end a long, irrelevant conversation, so he dialed the tapped phone on his own cellphone and tried, unsuccessfully, to cover his tracks.

But obstruction of a murder investigation and falsification of records weren’t his only charges. Manly Williams, who was first trained as a Pittsburg police officer before he worked for Antioch, also pleaded guilty to destroying the cellphone of a citizen who’d recorded Manly Williams’ colleague and then-roommate Morteza Amiri, who let loose a police K-9 on a suspect. He pleaded guilty to separate state-level charges involving accepting bribes to fix tickets.

And he got into other trouble with his friend Amiri, who was himself sentenced to a seven-year prison term in June for violating the constitutional rights of a suspect.

“i got a basketball size bag of weed in my trunk,” Amiri messaged Manly Williams in late 2020, which the two went on to personally consume, according to federal prosecutors. Manly Williams also sold marijuana around the same time period, prosecutors said.

White asked Manly Williams during the sentencing hearing what was in his mind and the minds of his fellow officers as they violated the rights of citizens and betrayed their oaths as peace officers.

“When was somebody on the force going to say, ‘Stop, that’s enough’?” White asked, referring at one point to the Antioch Police Department as the “Wild West of lawlessness.”

“It really troubled the court to be a citizen, and you have this rampant lawlessness and evil and violence and racism and sexism,” White said, “and nobody stepped forward until someone was caught and the dominoes fell.”

Manly Williams said his job as a police officer in Pittsburg taught him accountability and responsibility, but he strayed when he joined the force in Antioch.

“I went away from what I was taught initially from my first department, and adopted the behaviors that I believe had been going on for a very long time at the Antioch Police Department,” Manly Williams replied. “I wanted to be recognized. I wanted to get along with everybody else. And I wanted to rise through the ranks.”

The judge noted Manly Williams’ cooperation from the outset with federal authorities, and his work since he was charged as a special education teacher in Brentwood, before handing down a sentence of probation.

“Think about the idea that you still owe a debt to society and you need to repay that,” White said.

Harris, the other former Antioch officer sentenced Tuesday, presented himself as a “broken man” in his pre-sentencing statement to the court. He said his personal use of anabolic steroids began while he fought to recover from severe spinal injuries from his military service, as well as time in law enforcement as a Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputy and Antioch police officer.

Prosecutors, the defense and the court agreed that Harris had a very difficult childhood, marked by violence, emotional torment and “horrific sexual abuse,” according to court filings. He spoke through tears at his sentencing hearing, begging the judge to spare him a prison sentence for the sake of his two children.

“Every day feels like I’m inside of a nightmare, haunted constantly by the consequences of my decision,” Harris said. “I’m not a danger to society. I never have been. I never will be.”

“Please don’t take my children from me,” he added. “They need me, your honor.”

In addition to lifelong spinal injuries, Harris noted emotional scars from his time in law enforcement, describing in a letter to the court how his ex-wife once discovered him performing “CPR on a pillow while sobbing, reliving the moment I failed to save a two-year-old girl who drowned. Those memories have never left me.”

Judge White noted the volatility of steroid abuse and the seriousness of Harris’ decision to sell steroids to other law enforcement officers.

“Anabolic steroids definitely do have an effect on your mindset,” Harris acknowledged. “Sometimes I look in the mirror today, and I don’t even recognize the person I was.”

The judge took note of the fact that, unlike several other defendants in the broad Antioch police corruption cases, Harris’ conduct never involved violating the constitutional rights of citizens. White said Harris’ testimony against other officers was a service to the community.

“The people against whom you testified were serious bad actors in my view,” White told Harris. “Serious, bad police officers who not only violated their oaths but really visited terror on the communities they served.”

The final remaining defendant to be sentenced, Eric Rombough, also cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to conspiracy against rights and deprivation of rights under color of law. Rombough regularly encouraged serious use of force by Amiri and his K-9 partner, and he himself collected spent 40-millimeter impact rounds that he fired at suspects to display on his mantel at home. His sentencing is set for Feb. 10.