Several federal prosecutors — including the head of the public corruption and civil rights departments — plea agreement reached by new prosecutors in the U.S. in Los Angeles filed a resignation to a deputy who has been found guilty of excessive force.
U.S. assistant attorney Eli A. Alcaraz, Brian R. Faerstein and department chief Cassie Palmer resigned from the office in a “post-trial” plea agreement filed Thursday, a deputy deputy for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s case was found guilty of a law firm. Attacks and Challenges A woman outside Lancaster supermarket.
Folstein said he did not comment. It is said that no other prosecutors responded to the inquiry. Sources who confirmed their resignation asked for anonymity because they were concerned about revenge. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
Kirk, who was “fulfilled his duties” by the sheriff's department, was found guilty in February, a felony deprivation of legal rights and faces up to 10 years in prison. That still requires the judge's approval, and he will be imprisoned for up to one year, according to a plea agreement filed Thursday. The government agreed to recommend a one-year probation.
In June 2023, Kirk squirted a woman on his face when he threw a woman on the ground and pepper sprayed her outside Lancaster Winco during a reported robbery. Court records show that when the woman's description of a female suspect in Kirk fits the dispatcher's description, she was not armed or committed a crime when she first faced her.
Under the new agreement, Kirk will plead guilty, including fewer misdemeanors infringement of rights under the color of the law.
Under the agreement, if the judge approves the defense, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will “strike” the jury’s ruling for Kirk to inflict the victim.
Alkaraz, Palmer, Folstein and another prosecutor, Michael J. Morse, all withdraw the case on Friday, according to court documents. Robert J. Keenan, the only assistant attorney in the United States who signed a plea agreement, has not been involved in the case before.
Bill Essayli, Appoint Us oneLast month's Los Angeles Ttorney President Trump also listed the agreement.
Kirk's attorney Tom Yu declined to comment Friday night. Previously, he described Kirk as a “hero, not a criminal” and said he showed “detention of a combative robbery suspect” in the law.
Essayli's move to file a misdemeanor request to a defendant who has been convicted is very unorthodox, and he is now a partner at Halpern May Ybarra May Ybarra Gelberg LLP, according to Carley Palmer, a former director of the Los Angeles federal attorney's office.
“It's not unprecedented, but it's extraordinary to have a jury verdict dropped and replace it with a plea agreement for smaller crimes. The government invests extraordinary resources to take such cases for trial,” she said. “You did an agent's investigation, you had all the time for men or women… and then you had a jury saying you could get it in reasonable doubt.”
To justify the plea agreement after seeking a conviction, prosecutors need to find evidence that the defendant is innocent or that there was some serious misconduct in the trial panel.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson denied YU’s motion to be acquitted. Wilson ruled the video of the incident, which showed that the jury found Kirk used “objectively unreasonable power.”
“JH has no weapons, no attack on the defendant, no attempt to escape, no active crime,” Wilson wrote.
The judge also noted in the ruling that despite Kirk's active actions against women from the outset, his partner managed to lead the arrests of other suspects of robbery without using force.
Compared to a press release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in February, the new plea deal describes a clear difference in the way Kirk does.
The agreement mentioned the woman who “boycotted” Kirk's attempt to detain her and described her as a “swing” of her arm as a deputy.
Wilson determined in last month's ruling that this could be seen as a victim reflecting on Kirk's behavior, noting that it's unclear whether she hit Kirk.
The plea agreement also did not mention the woman's injuries, while in February it said she “had suffered head trauma from blunt objects and head, arms and wrist injuries.”
Attorney Caree Harper, representing women in a civil lawsuit that settled earlier this year, said the new plea agreement was “changing the facts” and was not supported by videotapes of the incident.
“They are making a living from facts and have decided to use Trevor Kirk's companion jury with middle fingers, which should not be tolerated,” she told the Times. Harper said that if Wilson approves the agreement, she expects civil rights groups to launch protests and urges state or county prosecutors to file a lawsuit.
Harper noted that the charge of demoting Kirk from a felony could allow him to continue as a law enforcement officer. He will also reserve the right to own a gun without a felony.
“He should never wear the badge any place in any state again,” she said.
According to former federal judge Robert Bonner, the county’s civilian oversight committee chairperson, a plea deal after conviction is extremely rare. Bonner said allowing deliberations after trial could undermine prosecutors’ ability to negotiate in the future.
“If you do this often, you will never be able to bargain,” he said.
Even if both federal prosecutors and defense agree to the deal, the judge doesn’t have to stick with it, Bonner said.
“He can reject the entire plea agreement, or he can accept the plea agreement and say I won't give me a one-year probation and I'm going to be detained for six months or another year,” he said.
Wilson refused to postpone Kirk's May 19 sentencing hearing last month after prosecutors told him that Essayli wanted more time to review the case.
After the prosecution in September last year, support for Kirk began to gain momentum on social media. In January, Nick Wilson, founder of the Los Angeles Sheriff Professional Association's first responder advocacy group, wrote to Trump urging him to intervene before the trial of the case. Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who has become increasingly popular in the online right-wing circle, also advocated for Kirk's case, posted an Instagram video after the trial, and Wilson cemented his attorney in court.
Wilson, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Professional Association, said Friday that he was “inspired by the latest developments in the Trevor Kirk case and will continue to monitor the upcoming verdict closely.”
“While the case should not be prosecuted in the first place, we are very grateful to the Justice Department for its just view of facts and merits,” he said in an email. “This action conveys a strong message – not only the Trevor situation, but also to law enforcement officers across the state and the country who often feel abandoned or politically targeted in today’s climate.”
A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department did not immediately comment on the development of the Kirk case.
The wave of resignation has been triggered in other recent controversies in the federal prosecutor’s office. In March, a White House official fired Adam Schleifer as an assistant U.S. attorney and told him in a single email that the firing was “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump.”
Schleifer recently challenged his firing, calling it “illegal” and alleged that it was due to his prosecution against Andrew Wiederhorn, former chairman and CEO of Fat Brands, which owns the restaurant chain Fatburger and Johnny Rockets. Schleifer also made negative comments during a Trump period when he left prosecutors to run for Democrats.
Independent legal journalist Meghann Cuniff said the Justice Department is reviewing A separate case involving Alexander SmirnovA former FBI whistleblower, who pleaded guilty to a false bribery program involving President Biden and his son Hunter. A federal judge sentenced Smirnov to six years in prison.
The turmoil in the Los Angeles federal attorney’s office was followed by a massive resignation in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan earlier this year, when Trump administration appointees urged New York Mayor Eric Adams to drop corruption charges.
