Second ex-Calif. officer convicted in scheme to fraudulently obtain college degrees for higher pay

By Terry Castleman
Los Angeles Times

ANTIOCH, Calif. — The troubled Antioch Police Department faces another blow, as a second police officer was convicted last week in a scheme to fraudulently obtain college degrees for higher pay.

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Morteza Amiri, 33, and five others from the Antioch and Pittsburg police departments falsely claimed they had obtained bachelor’s degrees in criminal justice in a ploy to qualify for higher pay, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California said in a statement Friday.

But the officers actually hired someone else to complete the courses online, unlocking raises and financial incentives they had not earned, prosecutors said. The other five pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud earlier this year; Amiri’s case was the only one to go to trial.

Amiri was also caught up in the Antioch Police Department’s racist texting scandal in 2023.

In May 2020, two days after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Amiri texted another officer about “riots in LA” over “the gorilla that died.”

In texts presented at Amiri’s trial, he wrote to the person hired to take classes that he would “pay you per class.”

"[D]on’t tell a soul about me hiring you for this,” he wrote. "[W]e can’t afford it getting leaked and me losing my job.”

“I’m gonna rush order my degree to get my pay raise jump started,” he allegedly wrote.

The other five officers convicted in the conspiracy to defraud police departments were Patrick Berhan , Amanda Theodosy a.k.a. Nash, Ernesto Mejia-Orozco and Brauli Rodriguez Jalapa , who were current or former members of the Pittsburg Police Department at the time, and Samantha Peterson of the Antioch Police Department , the U.S. attorney’s office said.

“Amiri engaged in a calculated conspiracy to defraud his police department of taxpayer funds. His actions were a violation of the law and a grave betrayal of public trust,” said Robert Tripp, a spokesman for the FBI.

“Amiri and his co-conspirators’ deception has no place in law enforcement. With this conviction, he now faces the consequences of his actions.”

Each of Amiri’s two convictions comes with a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He is scheduled to be tried in a related case in February.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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