Former Antioch officer sentenced to 7 years in prison over K-9 deployment, lies

Former Antioch officer sentenced to 7 years

Former Antioch police officer sentenced to 7 years for K9 attack and fraud.

ANTIOCH, Calif. - A federal judge sentenced a former Antioch police officer on Tuesday to seven years in prison for siccing his K-9 on a man riding a bicycle riding without his light on, falsifying records and engaging in a fraud to get a raise from the police department for a university degree he paid someone else to get. 

Long sentence, two trials

Morteza Amiri's sentence was handed down by Senior U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White, who presided over two trials that resulted in Amiri’s convictions for these crimes. White also ordered Amiri to spend three years on supervised release after getting out of prison, and will have to pay $3,180 to the dog bite victim and $10,526 to the city of Antioch in restitution.

The East Bay Times, which has been at the forefront of the Antioch police scandal, reported that Amiri appeared to mouth "I love you" to someone in the courtroom as the sentence was read. It is one of the longest prison sentences handed down to an East Bay police officer for on-duty conduct in recent years.

Following a four-day trial in August 2024, a jury found Amiri, 34, guilty of one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with the fraudulently-obtained degree scheme. 

Following a second eight-day trial in March, a jury found Amiri guilty of one count of deprivation of rights under color of law and one count of falsification of records in connection with a July 2019 arrest. 

At that point, Amiri was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals on March 18 and has remained in federal custody since.

"Amiri misused his police dog to inflict unnecessary and excessive force against a victim and cheated his way into a pay raise. These crimes are appalling in themselves, but even more so that they were committed by a police officer," FBI Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani said in a statement.

Deploying K-9 in violation of civil rights

Amiri, a K-9 handler, deployed his police dog to bite even when it was not necessary and violated a citizen's rights, prosecutors had argued. 

For example, on July 24, 2019, Amiri pulled over and stopped a bicyclist identified as A.A., who, according to Amiri, did not have his bicycle light on. 

Amiri approached A.A., punched and took him to the ground, and then called for his K-9 to bite A.A., who was injured.

Afterward, Amiri shared pictures of A.A's wounds with other Antioch police officers. 

One officer responded, "Yeah buddy good boy," referring to the K-9, and "Lol you bit [A.A.]." In response to a question from another officer about what cut the dog’s face, Amiri responded, "that’s a piece of the suspect’s flesh lol."

Amiri later wrote to the officer who accompanied him on the ride-along, "you got to see [the K-9] in action lol," and stated that detectives got the victim "a 45-day violation and we are gonna leave it at that so i don’t go to court for the bite. Easy," referring to A.A. going into custody for a parole/probation violation. 

Falsified reports 

Amiri then falsified a police report of the incident, the jury found, stating that one of the reasons he deployed his K-9 was because he was alone, when instead the ride-along police officer was with him at the time and had helped Amiri deploy the K-9.

University degree scam

In the earlier trial, evidence presented then showed that the city of Antioch and city of Pittsburg’s police departments offered reimbursements toward higher education tuition and expenses, along with pay raises and other financial incentives upon completion of a degree. 

Instead of completing higher education coursework on their own, Amiri and some of his colleagues hired someone to complete entire courses on their behalf at an online university to earn a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. 

Amiri and his former colleagues then pretended they had taken those courses and earned the degrees from the university when asking to get reimbursed from their police department employers, which would, in turn, make them eligible for raises. 

Paul Goyette, Amiri’s attorney, had argued that the Antioch Police Department made officers work too hard and didn't provide adequate mental health care.  

He told the East Bay Times that the sentence was "disappointing," adding that Amiri is "motivated to get through this and have a productive life when he gets out." Goyette also said the judge’s sentence would deter other officers from proactively policing their communities.

The charges against Amiri were brought as part of an investigation into the Antioch and Pittsburgh police departments that resulted in multiple charges against 10 current and former officers and employees of these two police departments for various crimes ranging from the use of excessive force to fraud. 

Most of these officers have been found guilty and sentenced to prison.