CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, Calif. — A federal jury convicted former Antioch police officer Morteza Amiri of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a scheme to obtain pay raises for a university degree he paid someone else to obtain for him.
The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, Ismail J. Ramsey, and FBI San Francisco Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp announced the conviction Friday afternoon.
The verdict, reached after a four-day trial, makes Amiri the sixth former Antioch or Pittsburg officer convicted in the wire fraud conspiracy, along with Patrick Berhan, Amanda Theodosy (Nash), Samantha Peterson, Ernesto Mejia-Orozco, and Brauli Rodriguez Jalapa.
“We expect integrity and honesty from every police officer, every day, in the police departments across this country,” Ramsey said in a statement. “Amiri failed to uphold these basic responsibilities, and a federal jury has convicted him of defrauding his employer, the Antioch Police Department.
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“He, along with the other officers he conspired with, now face the consequences of violating the rule of law that they swore to uphold.”
The wire fraud cases were part of bigger probes, by both federal authorities and the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office, into police brutality and racist text messaging, most of which involved Antioch police.
At least 10 Antioch and Pittsburg police officers were indicted by the U.S. Justice Department on charges including improper use of weapons and a police dog on suspects, civil rights violations, falsifying records, wire fraud, obstruction of justice, turning off body cameras, selling steroids, and paying individuals to take college classes for officers.
Four Black suspects charged with murder made plea deals on lesser charges after 12 Antioch officers involved either in the arrests or the investigations of the suspects were found to have violated the California Racial Justice Act.
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The officers took part in racist, homophobic and threatening text message chains, some of which referred to Black suspects as the N-word, described violence against suspects, threatened Antioch Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe, who is Black, and referred to then-Police Chief Steven Ford — who is also Black — as a gorilla.
The text messages involving as many as 45 Antioch officers. Nearly half of Antioch’s then-99 officers were put on leave.
The Antioch and Pittsburg police departments had offered reimbursements toward higher education tuition and expenses, along with pay raises and other financial incentives upon completion of a degree, according to prosecutors.
But Amiri, 33, and his co-conspirators hired someone to complete entire courses on their behalf at an online university to secure a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice.
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The officers received extra pay for supposedly completing the courses, calculated as percentages of their salaries.
Prosecutors said in a statement Friday that evidence showed Amiri texted the person who took his classes for him, writing among other things: “can i hire you to do my … classes? ill pay you per class”; “don’t tell a soul about me hiring you for this. we can’t afford it getting leaked and me losing my job”; “if i submit my request for the degree on time by the end of the month i can coordinate my raise in a timely manner”; and “I’m gonna rush order my degree to get my pay raise jump started.”
Amiri is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 12. Each of the two counts carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The court may also order a fine, restitution, and supervision upon release from prison as part of any sentence.
Amiri is scheduled for trial in another related case in February in which he’s charged with conspiracy against rights, deprivation of rights under color of law, and destruction, alteration, and falsification of records in federal investigations.
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