Three Northern California police officers accused in an investigation into racist and derogatory text messages were indicted on conspiracy charges alleging they “touted” their use of excessive force and collected “trophies,” according to court documents unsealed Thursday.
Eric Rombough, Devon Wenger and Mortez Amiri were accused of conspiring to “injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate” residents in Antioch, a city of roughly 114,000 people located 45 miles northeast of San Francisco, according to a 30-page indictment filed in federal court in California’s Northern District.
In a separate case unsealed Thursday, Wegner and another Antioch officer were accused of conspiracy to distribute steroids, destroying, altering and falsifying federal records, and other crimes.
Amiri was charged in two separate cases also unsealed Thursday alleging six counts of wire fraud related to a higher education fraud scheme.
The six defendants named in the case, some of whom work for the police department in the nearby city of Pittsburg, allegedly faked course work at a Southern California university in exchange for reimbursements, pay raises and bumps in benefits, according to the indictment.
In the excessive force case, Amiri — a former K-9 officer — deployed his dog Purcy to bite at least 28 people between 2019 and 2021, according to the indictment.
Amiri captured photos and videos of dog bite injuries and shared them on his personal cell phone with officers and others, saying in one 2019 text that the “gory pics are for personal stuff,” according to the indictment.
In some cases, he texted Wegner and Rombough — who worked for the department’s SWAT and gang units — how many times Purcy had bit someone: “#4 on fire rn…lol,” the indictment alleges.
In another instance in 2019, Wegner texted the other two officers, asking them to find a suspect who “ran,” according to the indictment.
When Wegner asked them to do something vulgar to the suspect, Rombough responded: “Deal.”
“i’ll bit ‘em,” Amiri added.
In another text, Rombough said he hoped to get Amiri “a bite.”
Amiri, who started working for the department in 2017, was suspended from the K9 unit in early 2022, the indictment says.
Rombough, who also served in the department’s “problem-oriented policing” unit, shot at least 11 people with a less-lethal weapon in less than a year, according to the indictment.
He collected the spent munitions from the weapon, telling others he was keeping them for “the mantle” and creating a trophy “flag” to commemorate his deployments, the indictment says.
He resigned from the gang and SWAT units in early 2022, according to the indictment.
Lawyers for Rombough and Amiri did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It wasn’t immediately clear if Wegner has a lawyer to speak on his behalf.
Efforts to reach Rombough and Amiri were unsuccessful. A message left on a phone number listed under Wegner’s name was not immediately returned.
The Antioch and Pittsburg police departments did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement, Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe described Thursday as a “dark day in our city’s history, as people trusted to uphold the law” allegedly breached that trust.
“As our city absorbs this tragic news, we must come together as one,” he said. “Today’s actions are the beginning of the end of a long and arduous process.”
Federal authorities investigating the criminal allegations uncovered a raft of racist and derogatory text messages that dozens of officers in Antioch either sent or received in 2020 and 2021. Amiri, Rombough and Wegner were identified as three of 14 officers who sent the messages, according to the investigative report.
A judge earlier this year released the investigative report compiled by the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office that included the partly redacted messages after a joint FBI and local investigation into the city’s police department.
In one message, Rombough allegedly used an expletive and texted another officer: “I’m only stopping them cuz they black.” In another message, Rombough allegedly texted a sergeant a picture of a suspect in a hospital bed and said it was the man’s fault that he got “6 muzzle thumps and me trying to kick his head over the fence.”
Amiri allegedly sent a text saying that because his agency does not record interviews on video, “I sometimes just say people gave me a full confession when they didn’t.”
“Gets filed easier,” Amiri said, according to the report.
