|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The last former police officer caught up in a wide-ranging federal civil rights and abuse of power case in Antioch and Pittsburg was sentenced Tuesday to more than four years in prison.
In 2023, 10 officers from the Antioch and Pittsburg police departments were charged with several crimes, including fraud, use of excessive force and conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids.
Eric Allen Rombough, 46, of Fairfield, a former Antioch officer, was the final defendant to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White.
In January 2025, Rombough pleaded guilty to conspiracy against rights and two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and agreed to cooperate with the government.
Federal prosecutors said that this type of criminal activity and corruption by people sworn to uphold the law is particularly heinous.
“We entrust law enforcement with vast power, and when they abuse it, they not only betray the oath they took and the community they serve, but they also undermine the public’s trust in our criminal justice system,” U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said in a news release.
The officers have all now been sentenced to various prison terms or time already served in jail for a wide range of crimes, including falsifying records, wire fraud, civil rights violations, obstruction of justice, improper use of weapons and K9 dogs on suspects, turning off body cams, selling steroids, and paying people to take college classes in order to get raises.
According to Rombough’s plea agreement and the evidence presented at two trials, he and former officers Morteza Amiri and Devon Wenger texted about “specific violent acts against individuals in and around Antioch, and agreed to carry out such acts knowing their actions constituted excessive uses of force,” according to prosecutors.
The trio talked about attacking suspects with a police dog as “punishment,” collected physical or photographic “trophies” after brutalizing suspects and bragged about it later, often exchanging text messages and photographs of injuries they caused, prosecutors said.
They also lied in police reports in order to make it look like the use of force was “necessary or justifiable.”
In March 2025, following an eight-day trial, a jury found Amiri guilty of one count of deprivation of rights under color of law and one count of falsification of records. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.
In September 2025, Wenger was convicted of conspiracy against rights and he was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.
The malfeasance at the Antioch Police Department first came to light in 2023 when dozens of homophobic, racist, sexist and generally offensive text exchanges between officers were revealed.
In 2023, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office, in conjunction with the FBI, released a report on the scandal, pinpointing 14 officers by name and describing a culture of racial bias and “animus towards African Americans and other people of color in the community,” according to the report.
The wrongdoing inside the police departments was so pervasive that the county had to hire extra prosecutors to help with all of the cases, which were investigated by local and federal agencies but ultimately prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In addition to bringing federal cases against the officers — and partly as a result of a $4.6 million civil rights lawsuit brought by attorney John Burris on behalf of 23 victims — the federal Department of Justice entered into an agreement with APD to overhaul its culture of racism and meet specific standards of compliance. The department has five years to make that goal and hired a consultant to help them reach it.
Some of the reforms include enhanced training for officers, the establishment of an independent review board to assess complaints, and an independent monitor to oversee the enforcement of the agreement.
— Story by By Kiley Russell, Bay City News
