OAKLAND — Devon Wenger, a former Antioch policeman, was sentenced Tuesday to seven and a half years in federal prison for scheming to give other cops steroids and conspiring to violate the rights of people he was supposed to protect and serve.
The sentence, handed handed down Tuesday afternoon by Senior U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, is the harshest thus far given to any of the 14 ex-East Contra Costa cops charged in 2023 as part of a massive police corruption scandal. White said he was baffled by the stark contrast between Wenger’s otherwise “courageous, otherwise law-abiding, otherwise respectful of the law” with the “terror visited upon members of the Antioch community.”
White said he was also shocked that throughout Wenger’s case, “I have not heard one word from anybody about some sort of feeling for these victims, who were victims of the defendant’s crimes.” He added he feared the police community at-large hasn’t “gotten the word” that there will be repercussions for officers who violate their oath of service.
“He needs to be deterred from doing these kids of acts,” White said, as one of Wenger’s supporters scoffed from the courtroom gallery.
Wenger didn’t address the court, citing his pending appeal.
Wenger’s lawyer, Michael Schwartz, asked for a three-year prison term. Prosecutors wanted nine years, arguing Wenger falsified police reports and obstructed justice to cover up his crimes and remains insistent that he did not do anything wrong.
“He was supposed to obey the law and not break it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Shepard said at the hearing. She quoted his texts with other officers about wanting to hurt people and said that contrasted with the letters of support from his loved ones, who view him in roundly positive terms.
“In the Antioch community he was someone else,” Shepard said, recounting how he “smashed” a woman’s head into a police car and “conspired” to distribute drugs and use “excessive force.”
Schwartz argued that such a high sentence would be unfair, because Wenger’s co-defendant, ex-Antioch police K9 Officer Morteza Amiri, was given a less harsh sentence for a similar conviction. He suggested Wenger sought “mentorship” from the very colleagues who ended up in court beside him as co-defendants.
“The one he was looking for mentorship from, the one who was actually convicted of in many ways a worse crime. (Amiri) should not get a lesser sentence than Wenger,” Schwartz said, later adding, “He doesn’t need the court to give him a harsh sentence. To be quite blunt, everything he worked for is gone.”
Wenger was one of 14 ex-Antioch and Pittsburg cops charged in either federal or state court with a wide range of offenses. He was convicted in one trial of distributing steroids, and in another of conspiring to violate peoples’ civil rights. Technically, his most serious offense is altering records — deleting texts in this case — to interfere with the steroids investigation, as federal law places a higher penalty on destroying evidence than instances when police betray their oath and injure people without cause.
Other officers were charged with accepting bribes, scheming to get fraudulent pay raises, interfering with a wiretap investigation and firearm offenses.
All of the 14 — except Wenger and Amiri — pleaded guilty or no contest, and several ended up cooperating with the government. Amiri was sentenced to seven years for violating a man’s civil rights with a K9 bite, and involvement in a college degree fraud conspiracy.
In asking for a nine-year prison sentence, prosecutors cited a number of incidents of police violence by either Amiri or Wenger, including acts that Amiri was acquitted of at his trial earlier this year. Schwartz countered that Amiri’s acquittal absolves Wenger of anything committed by Amiri, brushing off the government’s evidence that Amiri and Wenger had texted about wanting to use force on people.
“There can’t be a conspiracy with just my client and Mr. Amiri because Mr. Amiri didn’t conspire with anybody, according to this evidence and a jury,” Schwartz said.
Prosecutors rebutted his argument, saying federal law makes it clear that each individual’s role in an alleged conspiracy must be judged separately. White agreed, stating that it appeared Wenger’s lawyer was trying to re-hash arguments he made at trial.
A probation report quotes Wenger saying he “is hopeful that his convictions will be overturned on appeal,” and “wants to return to active military service and complete his special forces training,” according to a prosecution sentencing memo.
Schwartz referenced Wenger’s military service in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a mitigating factor.
“My client served his county in the military, and he served it well,” Schwartz said, and said his public service “before” the offenses should be considered. “He risked his life for our country, he risked his life on the streets.”
In the steroids case, Wenger was convicted of arranging to buy steroids for personal use and to give them to other cops, based on text messages and the testimony of other peers in law enforcement, including a co-defendant, ex-Antioch Officer Daniel Harris. Wenger has insisted that he never arranged to buy steroids, accusing a Contra Costa DA inspector of “injecting” fake messages into his phone.
The incidents cited by prosecutors include one in 2019, when Wenger broke a woman’s arm and smashed her sister’s face into the side of a police car while investigating shoplifting. Later, he told former Antioch Officer Eric Rombough “the (expletive) got what she deserved,” according to prosecutors. One of the women watched Wenger’s sentencing hearing from the courtroom galley.
Schwartz, countered that there was solid evidence one of the sisters had “fought” officers and “struck my client several times” during the arrest but that there was no documentation either were injured.
At the start of 2025, Wenger and Amiri were set to go to trial together. Just days into the proceeding, Wenger’s lawyer, Nicole Lopes, insisted on a mistrial, stating she was overwhelmed by lack of support and her own personal struggles. White granted the mistrial but later accused Lopes of “lack of candor” with the court after she appeared on a podcast and — according to White — contradicted what she’d told him in a sealed court hearing. White later removed Lopes from the case and Wenger was given a new lawyer.
During his second trial, White dismissed one count against Wenger, involving the use of a less-lethal gun on a suspected car thief. The jury convicted Wenger of conspiracy the following day.
Wenger has long maintained that he was targeted for prosecution not because he committed crimes, but because he attempted to expose the wrongdoings of colleagues, including Rombough, a co-defendant who ended up pleading guilty and testifying against both Wenger and Amiri. Rombough is awaiting sentencing.
White referenced this, noting that Wenger seems to believe “this trash” that “somehow everyone is to blame for his conviction except him.”
“I don’t buy that for one minute … I do not believe that in any way, shape, or form that he was the victim of illegal behavior, as he charges,” White said, later adding, “Make no mistake, he was not framed.”
White also noted that some private documents were leaked to a reporter, despite a court order limiting their distribution to Wenger and his various attorneys.
“I will get to the bottom of that,” White pledged.