Days before trial, ex-Pittsburg cop pleads guilty to fraud
Amanda Theodosy-Nash was the second-last of six ex-Antioch and Pittsburg cops accused of trying to illegally acquire pay raises.
OAKLAND — With just a few days to go before the scheduled start of her trial, a former Pittsburg police officer has pleaded guilty to two federal crimes, court records show.
Amanda Theodosy-Nash entered guilty pleas to conspiracy and wire fraud at a Tuesday court hearing. Her sentencing has been set for November.
Theodosy-Nash was one of six former Antioch and Pittsburg cops charged last year with illegally acquiring pay bumps by essentially cheating on college tests. They reportedly paid the then-girlfriend of one of the officers to take online college courses for them, thus making them eligible for a program that offered pay raises to city employees who received college degrees.
With Theodosy-Nash’s plea, five of the six have now pleaded guilty. The lone holdout is ex-Antioch Officer Morteza Amiri, who also faces charges of committing violent civil rights violations in a separate case. Amiri is set to go to trial on the wire fraud allegations next week.
Amiri was also involved in a massive texting scandal that engulfed nearly half of the police department. He was found to have sent numerous offensive texts, including racial slurs, racist remarks about suspects, and admissions to committing crimes, according to a District Attorney’s office report.
Prosecutors say that after illegally acquiring a degree, Theodosy-Nash left the Pittsburg police department and successfully applied for a law enforcement job in Santa Clara, claiming to have a college degree on her job application.
The alleged ringleader of the fraud scheme, Patrick Berhan, pleaded guilty earlier this year and is still awaiting sentencing. Prosecutors allege that he pressured his then-girlfriend to take college courses for him and others because she was “not financially pulling her weight in their relationship,” according to court records.
Only one of the officers has been sentenced: a former community service officer named Samantha Peterson, who avoided jail time after reading a contrite statement in court. Judge Jeffrey White, who is presiding over the case for all six defendants, implied at her sentencing hearing that such leniency would be an aberration.
Two of the five to enter guilty pleas, Ernesto Orozco-Mejia and Brauli Rodriguez Jalapa, have filed court papers saying they freely gave up certification to be law enforcement officials in California. That saves a state oversight agency the trouble of going through the formal process to revoke their certifications.
Amiri’s lawyers have not yet indicated how they’ll defend against the charges. Prosecutors have said they intend to introduce text messages where Amiri admits that he could be fired for the scheme and urges Berhan’s then-girlfriend to keep quiet about it.
That woman, known as “Individual 1” in court records, is on a government witness list of individuals expected to testify during Amiri’s trial.