Former Antioch Officer Who Bragged About Abuse of Power Gets 4 Years in Prison

A former Antioch police officer charged in connection with a widespread scandal involving corruption and excessive force at two East Bay police departments was sentenced Tuesday to more than four years in prison.

The sentencing of Eric Allen Rombough, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with other former officers to violate residents’ civil rights, brought to a close the litigation of the abuse case, which shook trust in law enforcement agencies in Antioch and neighboring Pittsburg and led to 10 guilty pleas or criminal convictions for former officers.

“It was extremely hard to listen to as a citizen, to hear that the police were essentially on a rampage of unbridled violence, racism, imposing — as you candidly admit — violence and terror on the community,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White told Rombough at the sentencing hearing. “I would venture to say that anybody who saw the red lights behind them in Antioch during that time period … or even now because of what happened … is in terror.”

Over the past year, Rombough served as a key witness for prosecutors in trials against fellow former officers Morteza Amiri and Christopher Wenger. He received leniency for his cooperation with authorities, White said. Last year, Amiri and Wenger were sentenced to seven and seven and a half years in prison, respectively.

The government’s investigation revealed that Rombough’s misconduct stood out among related cases as “the worst of the worst,” the judge said. Rombough bragged about using his 40-millimeter impact round launcher to abuse suspects, and he celebrated his colleagues’ use of violence. Rombough and his colleagues then falsified police reports to misrepresent their actions.

“I feel horrible about the victims, and about the other police officers who have had to clean up the job I created,” Rombough told White. “I understand why certain individuals don’t trust the police, because of what has happened here.”

Rombough joined the Antioch Police Department in 2017. During his trial, which focused on a period between February 2019 and March 2022, Rombough testified that he conspired with Amiri, Wenger and other APD officers to injure, harass and intimidate residents.

Prosecutors showed a series of text exchanges between Rombough and Amiri in which they repeatedly referred to Black suspects as “gorillas,” with Rombough adding: “I can shoot a few on Sunday.”

The two sent photos of victims’ injuries to one another, including bites caused by Amiri’s K9, and mocked other officers who refrained from using excessive force in their arrests.

Sentencing documents also describe a 2021 arrest in which Rombough kicked a suspect in the head and told other officers that he had injured his foot kicking the suspect’s head “like a field goal.”

Prosecutors also alleged that Rombough displayed spent impact round shells on his mantle as trophies. In one text exchange with another officer, he sent a photograph of an injury, with the comments “and another one got 40d,” referring to his firearm, and “Bro so much fun.”

But U.S. prosecutors said there was a second part to Rombough’s story: that after the former officer was indicted by a federal jury in 2023, investigators witnessed “a tremendous turnaround as well, unlike anyone else involved in the case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Cheng said during the sentencing hearing. “In this, we saw a full and complete acceptance of responsibility.”

Federal attorneys recommended a 36-month sentence — much more lenient than the punishments meted out to Amiri and Wenger. They also noted that Rombough paid $3,308 to a man he shot with his impact round launcher.

Rombough’s lawyers also asked for leniency, saying that since he pleaded guilty, he has shown “genuine remorse.” Attorney Tony Brass noted that the misconduct took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which officers were forced to work longer hours at a time of heightened public tension, and during a broader institutional breakdown at APD.

“You have to be a wolf to catch a wolf,” Brass said during the hearing, quoting the 2001 film Training Day. “The Antioch Police Department was infirm from the top down. The structure was to encourage police officers to be intimidating, to have street credibility, which comes with violence and bending the rules.”

White ultimately sentenced Rombough to 50 months in prison. He told Rombough the decision had been challenging because of what he called Rombough’s “heartfelt feeling of remorse.”

“It’s a very painful thing, and it’s a very hard thing to do, but it’s one that has to be done. Police conduct must be judged at the highest level of morality because of the power that they hold, and hopefully, this sentence will temper the justice with mercy,” White told Rombough.

Rombough, who wore a gray suit and whose blond hair was cropped short, fought back tears as he read from a letter that he wrote to the judge before the sentence was handed down.

“I’m choosing to be honest now because I want to be able to look my young sons in the eyes … and tell them the truth,” he said. “I want them to understand that when you make serious mistakes, you still have to try to make things right.”

Rombough, who is not currently in custody, has 45 days to report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for his sentence.

On release from imprisonment, Rombough will be placed under supervision for three years. He also must refrain from controlled substances, must make restitution and may not have contact with certain victims nor with any other defendant in the case, including Amiri and Wenger.

Earlier this year, White sentenced two other former Antioch police officers who testified against colleagues, Timothy Manly Williams and Daniel Harris, to time served or probation for federal charges. And in December 2025, Antioch agreed to implement a series of police reforms and pay $4.6 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed by the officers’ victims.