OAKLAND — A federal district court judge could soon hand disgraced Antioch K9 Officer Morteza Amiri the longest prison sentence yet in one of the Bay Area’s largest policing scandals in decades.
All that remains in question, it seems, is how long he’ll spend behind bars.
Federal prosecutors this week asked Senior U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White to sentence Amiri to at least eight years in prison after back-to-back convictions over the last year for his role in a 2019 police dog mauling, the subsequent falsification of police records and a sprawling scheme to obtain bogus college degrees to earn pay bumps.
Amiri’s attorneys have asked for a far more lenient prison term, capped at four years.
Amiri’s sentencing — which is scheduled for Tuesday — comes nearly two years after federal and state prosecutors arrested him and more than a dozen other Antioch and Pittsburg police officers on a broad range of charges, including conspiracy, wire fraud, possession of anabolic steroids and accepting tequila to make traffic tickets go away.
So far, most officers convicted in the scandal have faced prison sentences of only a few months. One former Pittsburg officer, Patrick Berhan, received a two-and-a-half-year prison term for his role in a scheme to boost officers’ pay with fake college degrees. Other officers — including former Antioch cop Eric Rombough, who testified against Amiri at his trial — have yet to be sentenced.
Only one former Antioch cop, Devin Wenger, has yet to face trial or plead guilty in the scandal. Though Wenger was originally slated to stand trial alongside Amiri earlier this year, a judge declared a mistrial over concerns about the competency of his attorney. A new trial date was set for later this year. Another jury convicted Wenger in late April of distributing steroids and obstructing a federal investigation; he has yet to be sentenced in that case.
The prosecutors’ request in Amiri’s case falls on the low end of sentencing guidelines calculated by prosecutors, which called for Amiri to spend anywhere from 97 to 121 months — about 8 to 10 years — in prison, according to a government filing this week. Prosecutors say he shouldn’t spend a minute less behind bars, given the stain he’s left on policing across the East Bay and the joy he appeared to take in breaking the law.
In March, a jury delivered a split verdict against Amiri — clearing him of three charges, including one count of conspiracy and two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law, but finding him guilty of a third deprivation of rights charge, as well as falsifying records. The verdict came after prosecutors said he illegally instigated a confrontation with a bicyclist that led to the man being mauled by Amiri’s police dog, Purcy.
The July 2019 encounter marked just one of dozens of instances where Amiri — who often referred to the dog as his “fur missile” — allegedly sicced the animal on Antioch residents, before bragging about it in racist text messages with fellow officers, prosecutors argued at trial.
After the encounter, Amiri allegedly joked in a text about having a “weak ass” reason for using the dog —adding that he skewed his report on the incident “so I don’t go to court for the bite,” according to testimony shown at trial. Antioch police records show Amiri used Purcy at a much higher rate than other department K9 officers.
In 2024, another jury found Amiri guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy after paying a woman to earn a criminal justice bachelor’s degree in his name to earn education-based pay incentives that topped $10,500.
Through it all, prosecutors say, Amiri was “among the worst” of the officers indicted in the scandal.
“At some point, Amiri began to enjoy breaking the law,” wrote prosecutors, who added that a lengthy sentence “would serve as general deterrence to others in positions of public trust — particularly sworn police officers — from committing, further organizing and covering up such crimes.”
Amiri’s attorneys, however, say the sentencing guidelines were severely misinterpreted, causing them to be wildly inflated. They also cited 63 letters submitted by Amiri’s family, friends and former colleagues as proof that he was a good man who was briefly led astray by a toxic culture within the Antioch Police Department.
They framed Amiri as a man who sought from childhood to become a police officer — even going so far as to enroll in youth police academies as a child and, later, to sleep outside in line for one of two open spots in a police academy. Yet working in Antioch — where he responded to more than 50 calls involving dead bodies — took a toll, the attorneys wrote. Over time, they said, Amiri allowed the toxic culture within the APD to guide his actions.
“He is a loving, devoted father and partner who treasures family time and traditions that include giving back to the community,” Amiri’s attorneys wrote.
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“Mr. Amiri acknowledges the seriousness of the offense and offers no excuse for his actions,” the attorneys wrote.
Amiri has been awaiting sentencing at the Santa Clara County jail, after White ordered him into federal custody just days after his March conviction. He is being held in the South Bay to avoid any potential conflicts with housing him in an East Bay jail.
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