Former Antioch police officer found guilty of distributing steroids, altering records

ANTIOCH, Calif. - A jury on Thursday found a former Antioch police officer guilty of distributing steroids and altering records, the 14th officer to be convicted or plead guilty in scandals that have rocked the Antioch and Pittsburg police departments.

The trial for Devon Wenger, 33, in Senior U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White's courtroom took three days. 

Wenger was convicted of conspiring with Daniel Harris, who was at the time also a police officer with the Antioch Police Department, to distribute anabolic steroids to a third person and then deleted evidence of this conspiracy from his cell phone. Harris pleaded guilty to bank fraud in September 2024. 

"When Devon Wenger broke the law and then tried to cover his tracks, he didn’t just commit a crime — he betrayed the trust of the community he was sworn to serve," FBI Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani said in a statement. "After learning the FBI was outside his home with a search warrant, he chose to delete evidence rather than come clean. That kind of misconduct corrodes public confidence in law enforcement." 

On March 23, 2022, the FBI began calling and texting Wenger telling him that they were outside his home with a warrant about 8 a.m.

It was not until 9:00 a.m. that Wenger appeared for the FBI to seize Wenger’s cellular phone.

Later, forensic examination of that device showed that specific entries related to the steroids had been deleted: specifically, all text messages between Wenger and Harris, all text messages between Wenger and the third person he was trying to supply with steroids, the contacts for both Harris and the third individual, and recent call log entries for Wenger’s most recent phone calls with the third individual.

Wenger is scheduled to appear on May 6 for a hearing on whether to remand him to custody pending sentencing. 

Also on that day, Wenger's attorneys will work out details for his upcoming July 21 trial, where he is charged with conspiracy and violating someone's civil rights. 

The East Bay Times reports that Wenger has long maintained that he is innocent of any crime but was targeted because he attempted to expose misconduct by other officers. He resigned from the department in 2023 and recently sued Antioch police, court records show.

Charges against Wenger 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. The East Bay Times reports there are 14 officers involved between both departments. 

Antioch PD was placed under federal oversight earlier this year.