Five Antioch and Pittsburg police officers have been charged with obstruction of justice and bribery for fixing traffic tickets for friends, Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton said Friday.
“The charges set forth in these complaints allege offenses of public corruption,” Becton said in a statement.
The charges against Timothy Manly Williams, Calvin Prieto, Andrea Rodriguez and Ben Padilla, all of the Antioch Police Department, and Juan Ernesto Mejia-Orozco of the Pittsburg Police Department arose from forensic analysis of their mobile phones, prosecutors said.
In March 2022, state and federal investigators obtained search warrants for the cell phones of a number of officers. A large trove of overtly racist, sexist, and homophobic text messages was uncovered, prosecutors said.
Timothy Manly-Williams also faces a federal criminal indictment for civil rights violations and other charges announced Thursday.
When I was young I had a business card from a policeman relative that had a message on it. It was called a courtesy card. Though the relative worked in Los Angeles it got me out of a ticket as far away as Salinas. So this has been going on for years and years. Who knows how many people in the country are carrying a courtesy card. Maybe try going after the real criminals. This is minor BS.
I take things that never happened for $500 Alex.
It seems as though there is a grudge against these officers.
Maybe all the overt racism and police brutality?
I do not think you understand the significance of what is alleged to have occurred.
The term “Fixing a ticket* refers to a court document that has already been issued. That is the citation has been completed by the issuing officer, sign by the driver and issued a court date.
The allegations is they circumvented the court process for a citation ANOTHER police officer issued AND they did so for personal gain.
That is a far cry from a courtesy card, which I have heard of but never actually seen in my 30 year career in CA law enforcement.
It isn’t right, but face it compared to what is not getting charged it is nothing.
It is more than just “it isn’t right”. It’s called bribery of an Executive Officer and Penal Code § 67 PC makes it a hard felony. Punishable by two, three or four years, in state prison and disqualified from holding any office in this state.
Something you need to consider since you seem to be so cavalier about this. It actually is something, something very important. It brought 10 possible corrupt officers into the bright light of day. Corruption cannot be allowed metastasize or it will become institutionalized.
These 10 enjoy the presumption of innocence but it would appear that they broke the faith and God was watching. I have no sympathy for the lot of them. They made a lot of good hard working cops job exponentially more difficult and for what?
Truly unfortunate a hard FELONY for bribery isn’t in place for politicians.
.
Janus
I am surprised you have not seen one. I am not LE, though I have worked with many agencies throughout the years. I carry courtesy cards from 3 agencies (federal and local). I have never used one but I carry just in case
Now decades ago, I knew an officer who signed off a friends citation for some vehicle infraction. Those citations are signed off all the time. Sometimes the infraction is fixed, other time they are not
Then you’re all about circumventing the court system, I know it happens … the Mayors fiend, the captains uncle … sorry, this is common practice – I know it and I have not been a LEO.
These officers are being targeted – plain and simple.
Well Parent, if you cannot see the difference between a Fix -It Ticket AND an officer going into the office either stealing 3 copies of a court document which is what a Traffic Ticket is OR filling out a dismissal document, lying on the reason for the dismissal AND forging another Officers name on it to have the ticket dismissed; then taking bribes for committing a felony where do you draw the line?
You do realize at least one of these sworn employees is also be accused of falsifying his reports. Routinely writing that suspects confessed to the crime when they had not. One of these employees is accused of putting his gun in the mouth of a suspect and telling him to stop stealing or he would kill him.
Do we as a society not pay peace officers to enforce the laws or do we as a society pay them to break the laws and profit by doing so? Did these officers not swear an oath? Does that mean nothing?
What is an acceptable amount of corruption Parent? Is it acceptable so long as it doesn’t happen to you or yours OR so you can personally benefit like you carrying 3 courtesy cards “just in case”?
If by being targeted you mean all this was discovered as a direct result of 2 officers distributing anabolic steroids, a controlled substance under both California and Federal law then yes, you are correct. All these other crimes were incidental to the steroid investigation. You never know what is going to come scurrying out from under a rock now do you?
Chief Parent you are in charge. What would you do about? Pretend all these other felonies didn’t happen or enforce the law?
If you do nothing how are you going to trust these officers that took bribes to dismiss tickets, embezzled monies for educational incentive pay they did not earn, lied in their police reports or committed an ADW or God knows what else will eventually come out?!?
If you do nothing, are you going to lie by omission and not report them for the Brady list?
If you do nothing or soft soap it, how are you actually going to enforce work place rules with other employees when they do something that crosses your invisible line in the sand?
How do you fix a character flaw in a person?
Janus
Did I touch a nerve?
You said as a 30 year veteran you had never seen a card and I question that, simply based on what I carry with me. TBH, I have not been pulled over in more than 15 years, so I have not had an opportunity to ‘test’ the courtesy cards.
As for me being I charge, as they say ‘it depends’. You call it corruption, so did you pull over every car with expired tags or illegal tint or other vehicle infractions? If not, why not? What rationale did you use to determine if you were pulling someone over or not? If you did not, are you guilty of failing to do the job that was entrusted to you? You were paid to do it … so did you?
As for these officers, the statement was about fixing tickets – not how they discovered that bit of information. Putting a gun in a suspects mouth is over their line, but that is not what this article states – apparently you have more insider information on this case.
They fixed traffic tickets, per this article. Traffic tickets … red lights, speed, …. We are not talking drugs, murder, etc. I don’t like the fact that they were paid to fix them. Nor do I know how they fixed them – legally or illegally. Those facts are not here so I am willing to hold off my judgement of these officers until such facts are presented by an unbiased body (not you, as you have already made it clear that they are guilty without all the evidence or a trial).
Nothing but a Strawman fallacy argument.
Janus
How is this a fallacy? I am genuinely interested in what you are trying to say? I understand if you do not want to answer my questions, as that might put you in the same boat you are throwing the other officers into. But could you respond with more than just your opinion that I am making a strawman fallacy argument?
Based on your latest response, I think I have touched a nerve.
Ad hominem along with are Red Herring logical fallacy arguments. That is 3 so far.
And Janus still cannot answer a question … just more fallacy and red herring statements. Your are brining in more information, without sources I might add, then what is stated in this article.
As for your your ad hominem fallacy statement (big words), you started this attack. I responded originally based on your statement about courtesy cards, and you responded with the attack.
I used to wish I could understand your argument about fallacy, but I no longer care to discuss this matter with someone who cannot answer simple questions … and an only make broad stroke allegations without any supporting evidence.
10-7
Oh, they concentrate on this stuff. When there is literally chaos in the community and criminals and dope dealers are running wild, causing havoc. Excellent sense of priorities.
Well, I for one will sleep much sounder tonight
Well let’s see how our fine DA Becton treats these officers compared to the typical scummy drug dealers, gun toting thugs and auto thieves that have been busted.
A slap on the wrist and out?
You know exactly how this is going to do down. She will hang them from the cross and get on her bully pulp to glow in her achievement for the cameras.
There is absolutely no reason why the US Attorney could not have prosecuted this bribery case. This was a political gift to Becton to allow her to prosecute these officers for her own political gain.
I heard a story where certain politicians were giving their friends printed “Greenback”. Why isn’t this in the news? Maybe that’s just a rumor. Well, we all know that there is some kind of truth in rumors.