PITTSBURG — A former policemen with both Antioch and Pittsburg pleaded no contest to felony conspiracy and misdemeanor evidence tampering charges in a Thursday court hearing, marking the first conviction that has come from a massive criminal investigation that led to charges against 14 East Contra Costa police officers.
Timothy Manly Williams pleaded no contest to one count of felony conspiracy to commit an injurious act to a public cause, and one count of misdemeanor evidence altering. Both charges were filed last August by the Contra Costa District Attorney’s office, as part of an alleged scheme among several officers to make traffic tickets go away in exchange for bribes. He faces up to three years and four months behind bars.
Manly Williams is one of 14 current and former Antioch and Pittsburg officers charged in a massive probe that began with allegations that several officers from both cities were fraudulently obtaining incentive pay from the city by paying someone to take college classes for them.
The investigation soon mushroomed into much more serious allegations, resulting in three Antioch officers — Eric Rombough, Morteza Amiri, and Devon Wenger — being charged with violent civil rights abuses, like injuring people less lethal weapons and police K9s for sport. Others were charged with distributing steroids, and one former Pittsburg cop was charged with illegally possessing and distributing two assault rifles.
In Contra Costa court, Manly Williams was charged with conspiring with other officers to make traffic tickets go away in two separate alleged schemes. In one, he and others allegedly agreed to fix a traffic ticket for someone in exchange for bottles of Teremana tequila, the brand founded by actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. In another case, Manly Williams and others allegedly agreed not to show up to traffic court so that a ticket wouldn’t be upheld, but didn’t receive compensation for their dishonesty, prosecutors say.
On the federal side, Manly Williams is charged with obstructing an ongoing murder investigation and destroying the cellphone of a person who was recording police at a crime scene. Prosecutors allege that after making the call, Manly Williams altered a wiretap record in the hopes that no one would discover he contacted the person.
In that case, federal prosecutors say they’ve turned over a whopping 65.2 GB of data related to the investigation. No trial date has been set.
Manly Williams’ no contest plea has no bearing on federal court, where he still faces active charges, related to allegations that he telephoned the target of an Oakland police investigation into gang members thought to be responsible for several fatal and nonfatal shootings.
Manly Williams accepted the convictions without a deal in place with county prosecutors, leaving his fate in the hands of a Contra Costa Superior Court judge, in a process commonly known as “pleading open.”
He is next due in court for a sentencing hearing on March 19, 2024, before Judge John Kennedy. His attorney, Randy Sue Pollock, declined to comment. The Contra Costa District Attorney’s office did not issue a statement beyond confirming the basic details of what happened in court Thursday.
Like all 14 of the officers who’ve been charged thus far, Manly Williams has been out of custody since his first court appearance back in August.
Meanwhile, Antioch continues to grapple with the fallout from the investigation and related racist/homophobic/sexist text message scandal that came from it. After seizing a number of officers’ cellphones in early 2022, the FBI reportedly uncovered offensive communications involving dozens of Antioch officers. The result has been an ongoing investigation — with a hard deadline set for March 2024 — that could result in discipline or termination of nearly half the police force.
Antioch’s chief of police at the time the scandal broke, Steven Ford, resigned in July, and the city is still searching for his permanent replacement. Ford, who was not in charge during the time period in which Antioch officers were allegedly committing crimes or sending racist texts, is now in the running to become either the next police chief of Oakland or CSU East Bay’s police force.
The city is also still working to rebuild its staffing levels because of the dual scandals. Dozens of officers remain on leave while technically taking up employment slots, leaving the city with an incomplete police force. On top of that, six of the indicted Antioch officers were paid a combined total of $1.79 million in pay and benefits for doing nothing other than staying on administrative leave while under criminal investigation.
Many of the impugned officers, including Manly Williams, Amiri, Rombough, and Wenger have since been decertified by a California oversight agency, preventing them from being hired by any law enforcement agency in the state.
The dual scandals have affected the justice system too; prosecutors in federal and state court have dismissed dozens of charges that hinged on the testimony of officers whose word now cannot be trusted. An a judge is weighing dismissing or reducing murder charges against four Black men in Contra Costa County, on the basis that the officers who investigated them were racist.