How L.A.’s new top federal prosecutor erased felony verdict in deputy’s excessive force case

It took a federal jury an hour to convict a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy of using excessive force after he assaulted and pepper-sprayed a woman outside a supermarket in Lancaster in 2023.

The prosecutors made their case in a three-day trial in February, ultimately persuading jurors to find Trevor Kirk guilty of a felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law. Kirk faced up to 10 years in prison.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson sentenced Kirk to four months in prison, after last week granting the government’s request to dismiss the felony charge. With that dismissal, Kirk faced up to a year in prison.

Ahead of sentencing, the government had requested probation that included three months of home detention and 200 hours of community service. The defense team asked for a term of two months of home confinement and 300 hours of community service.

“In my view, the jury verdict was fully supported and the case was not unfairly argued, as the government at some early point argued,” Wilson said after handing down his sentence. “The job of a police officer is a very difficult one ... but with those factors in mind, there is a responsibility to act appropriately.”

Kirk declined to speak during the sentencing hearing. Tom Yu, an attorney representing Kirk, said they plan to appeal Wilson’s earlier denial of their motion for an acquittal.

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The sentencing capped a controversial case that saw the federal government abandon a conviction and take the highly unusual legal step of offering Kirk a misdemeanor plea deal after jurors had spoken. That plea deal played a role in the resignation of several federal prosecutors last month and raised concerns over how the office will handle pending cases against law enforcement.

The post-trial plea agreement landed the same week President Trump issued an executive order vowing to “unleash” American law enforcement, and it followed other recent controversies that have raised alarms about the eroding independence of the U.S. Justice Department under the Trump administration.

Seated in the front row of the packed courtroom Monday was U.S. Atty. for Los Angeles Bill Essayli, a staunch Trump ally and hard-line conservative who was appointed in April and under whom the felony verdict unraveled.

Approached after the hearing, Essayli declined to comment.

An indictment

A federal jury indicted Kirk last September in connection with the incident, in which the deputy — who was responding to a robbery report — threw a woman to the ground and pepper-sprayed her in the face while she filmed him outside a WinCo.

Although the woman matched the description of a suspect Kirk had received from a dispatcher, she was not armed or committing a crime when he confronted her, court records show.

Before the case went to trial, according to a motion filed by Asst. U.S. Atty. Robert J. Keenan, the government was willing to enter into a plea agreement that would have allowed Kirk to plead to a misdemeanor. Kirk instead took his chances on a jury trial and lost.

In January, Nick Wilson, founder of a first-responder advocacy group and spokesperson for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Professional Assn., wrote to Trump urging him to intervene before the case went to trial. In the letter, he said left-wing activists wanted to make an example of Kirk.

“This case is about more than just one deputy, it’s about the survival of law and order in America,” he wrote, according to screenshots of the letter posted on social media.

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The trial went ahead anyway.

In his opening statement on Feb. 4, Asst. U.S. Atty. Brian R. Faerstein told jurors Kirk had used excessive force against the victim, Jacy Houseton, by slamming her to the ground and pepper spraying her “when it was unnecessary to do so.”

“At the end of this trial, the United States will ask you to hold the defendant accountable for abusing his power and authority,” Faerstein said.

Kirk’s attorney told the jury the deputy had relied on his training to deal with a “resistant suspect.”

“There is a world of difference between a use of force and excessive force,” Yu said.

Two days later, the jury returned with a guilty verdict.

A new U.S. attorney

Essayli was sworn in as the new U.S. attorney on April 2. The following week, prosecutors on the Kirk case filed a motion to delay the sentencing hearing because Essayli wanted to review the case.

When asked about the review, the U.S. attorney’s office said former U.S. Atty. Martin Estrada in March 2023 established an executive position within the office to address ethics and post-conviction issues.

The office said it gets requests to review cases pre-and post-conviction, but declined to comment on how many cases have been reviewed since 2023. Estrada did not respond to an email seeking comment on the Kirk case last week.

Soon after his appointment, Essayli requested that the Riverside County district attorney’s office “conduct an independent and impartial review of the case and evidence in the Kirk matter,” according to Dist. Atty. Mike Hestrin.

“I assigned a team of experienced investigators and prosecutors to thoroughly review the evidence and case details, evaluating what, if any, charges we would consider for prosecution had the case been submitted to us for potential filing,” Hestrin said in a statement.

The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on why Essayli involved the Riverside County district attorney’s office in a federal case out of Lancaster. A legal expert called the move highly unusual.

“I think it looks like he was trying to shore up evidence to find the result he was looking for. The fact that he went outside the office is an indication he wasn’t getting the support that he wanted from the prosecutors within the office,” said Carley Palmer, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, who is now a partner at Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg LLP.

With the allegations of partisanship swirling around the case, Palmer also questioned why Essayli didn’t ask the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office to lead the review, given Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman’s status as a political independent.

“It does seem like if you were looking for additional takes on this case, it might make sense to go to the former federal prosecutor now working across the street now managing the county where the crime took place,” said Palmer.

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A spokesman for the L.A. County district attorney’s office said Essayli has never contacted Hochman about the Kirk case.

In April, Wilson denied a motion from Yu for an acquittal. The judge ruled that footage of the incident was sufficient evidence for a jury to find that Kirk used “objectively unreasonable force.”

On April 22, the judge refused the government’s request to postpone Kirk’s sentencing.

Two days later, according to Hestrin, the Riverside County prosecutors and investigators Essayli tapped to review the case attended a meeting in L.A. with the U.S. attorney and his staff to present their findings and recommendations.

When asked what those findings and recommendations were, the Riverside County district attorney’s office referred that question to the U.S. attorney’s office, which declined to comment.

On May 1, the government filed a “post-trial” plea agreement under which Kirk would plead guilty to misdemeanor violation of deprivation of rights under color of law. The downgrade to a misdemeanor is significant as Kirk would have lost the right to be a law enforcement officer or own a gun with a felony conviction.

The only assistant U.S. attorney who signed off on the plea agreement, Robert J. Keenan, was not previously involved in the case. The next day, the original prosecutors involved all withdrew from the case.

Last week, Wilson rejected the plea agreement — which recommended that Kirk be sentenced to probation. But the judge granted the prosecution’s motion to lessen the charges against the deputy to a misdemeanor, despite the jury conviction.

Sentencing

More than 50 people packed the courtroom for the sentencing hearing Monday, including former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who has championed Kirk’s case online. Before the proceeding began, supporters embraced Kirk, who wore a cross-shaped pin that bore the American flag.

Keenan told the judge that the government believed a prison sentence to be “unnecessary” and “unreasonable.”

In handing down his sentence, Wilson said that, in his view and the jury’s view, Kirk’s actions were “just plain inexplicable.” He said that Kirk “knew there was no danger to himself or anyone else,” before he pepper sprayed Houseton.

“This was pretty awful,” Wilson said. “Yes, it wasn’t as terrible as many cases or most cases I see, but this is the case before me. In my view, it can’t go unpunished. ... This is the way the court feels the ends of justice are achieved.”

In a sentencing recommendation obtained by The Times, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna asked Wilson to sentence Kirk to probation, blaming his actions that day on poor training, stemming from the fact that the Sheriff’s Department had not properly followed reforms ordered by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

Kirk remains a sheriff’s deputy, according to an agency spokeswoman, but an internal investigation into his conduct that could result in termination will now move forward since the criminal case is complete.

“We uphold the highest standards of conduct for our personnel and expect them to serve our communities with integrity,” LASD said in a statement. “No badge grants our personnel immunity from accountability.”

Kirk agreed to surrender himself on Aug. 28.

In another twist, Caree Harper, who has represented Houseton, filed a petition Monday morning with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals requesting that it vacate the dismissal that reduced Kirk’s conviction from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The 9th circuit responded after Kirk was sentenced, stating that the petition “raises issues that warrant an answer.” The court directed the government to file an answer by Tuesday.