A Valencia man is facing unusual legal jeopardy — a federal judge Monday could either: accept a post-trial agreement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and give him probation, or accept the jury’s verdict, follow the recommended guidelines and issue a seven-year sentence.
In February, a jury in Downtown Los Angeles convicted Trevor Kirk, a 32-year-old Army veteran and former Lancaster Sheriff’s Station deputy, of deprivation of rights under the color of law in connection with a physical altercation with a woman while he was responding to a burglary report in June 2023
Prosecutors initially alleged Kirk left Jacy Houseton with serious injuries while responding to a burglary report at the WinCo grocery store, using excessive force when he threatened her and then used pepper spray when she did not comply.
After the conviction, the Department of Justice named Bill Essayli head of the USAO’s Central District on April 1, and the federal government took a completely different tact on the case May 1: Essayli filed a motion seeking to strike the jury’s findings, dismiss the felony indictment and lessen Kirk’s sentence.
In response, Judge Stephen V. Wilson ordered both parties into his chambers the following week and asked the federal government to submit its reasoning for why he should be able to do that.
“The court has questions as to its authority to grant such a motion,” according to a federal docket report available online. “Accordingly, the court orders plaintiff to file (a) briefing regarding the court’s authority to grant a motion by the government to strike portions of a jury verdict.”
One group of Antelope Valley residents who protested the latest turn in the Kirk case described it as emblematic of the community’s problems with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, including its use of force.
As of February, the month of Kirk’s conviction, the use-of-force rates for the Antelope Valley stations, Lancaster and Palmdale, were significantly higher than those in Santa Clarita and even the countywide average.
SCV deputies had 3.49 incidents of force for every 100 arrests, which was below the L.A. County average of 5.88. By comparison, the Lancaster station averaged 9.84 incidents per 100 arrests, and Palmdale was 6.21.
The Lancaster station has reported 1,799 use-of-force incidents over the past five years, second only to the 1,968 at Men’s Central Jail, which houses 5,600 inmates and represents the state’s largest correctional facility by custodial population. In that span, the SCV reported 642.
Sheriff Robert Luna addressed some of the issues in a letter to Wilson, seeming to agree with some of the concerns from the community advocates regarding the need to change policy.
He referenced a 2011 settlement with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, “which initiated an investigation into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s (LASD) Palmdale and Lancaster Stations in response to community complaints about potential Fair Housing Act violations and other general policing issues in the Antelope Valley,” according to the LASD website.
As a result of that agreement, a monitoring team was set up to address a number of issues that could have impacted this case, he said. However, in a letter dated Wednesday, Luna said in the two and a half years he’s been sheriff, the monitors “had largely been ignored.”
“For example, the LASD’s (use-of-force) policy had not been updated in years and was not reflective of significant changes that had been made,” Luna wrote. “Furthermore, training at the patrol stations was deficient.”
Kirk has received an outpouring of support from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Professional Association, a splinter union group that briefly promoted a run to support Kirk in Castaic. The run was canceled as abruptly as it was organized. Deputies also skipped a recent fundraiser run in protest.
While the U.S. Attorney’s Office was filing its arguments in court Tuesday, several groups upset by the LASD response to their complaints and concerns about policing gathered at the courthouse to protest, including Cancel the Contract Antelope Valley, Check the Sheriff and Black Lives Matter.
Waunette Cullors, executive director for Cancel the Contract, said she was one of about two dozen AV residents who made the trek to Los Angeles to ask the USAO to respect the jury’s findings.
She’s been involved in the situation since the beginning and said she gave the Lancaster station captain a video that contradicted Kirk’s radio reports regarding the incident — which was part of the government’s initial claims about the case.
“She was within the law to videotape, and what he did was unjust,” Cullors said in a phone interview Wednesday.
“While on top of J.H., Kirk used his LASD radio to give a misleading report that he was in a ‘fight,’” according to a DOJ news release issued February in response to the conviction.
Cullors said she met with Houseton at the WinCo the day after the incident and that Houseton had a fractured arm and a black eye. Cullors also said neither person detained by Kirk and his partner during the incident response ended up being charged with a crime.
In its filing this week, the Department of Justice is now arguing that Houseton’s injuries don’t come anywhere close to justifying the pre-sentencing recommendation from the federal probation report, a 108- to 120-month guideline the USAO called “patently unjust” and “not even close to reasonable.” The final U.S. Probation Office recommendation for the case was an 87-month sentence.
A representative for the USAO has declined to comment on the case or the post-trial agreement.
In the 31-page motion filed Tuesday, the government said both sides have now agreed that sentencing range of 12 to 18 months’ imprisonment would be in accordance with standard guidelines, but that probation is the more appropriate sentence.
Robert Keene, the assistant U.S. attorney assigned to the case just prior to the post-trial filing, argued Tuesday that the Probation Office recommendation was off because the guidelines had been misapplied.
“In contrast to other excessive-force cases, defendant did not use pepper spray after J.H. was cuffed or otherwise secured,” he wrote, arguing there was no bodily intent to cause injury, and that Kirk was forcing compliance.
“While placing J.H. in the back of a patrol car, defendant responded to J.H.’s continued protests by saying, ‘All you had to do was listen.’ When J.H. opined that defendant was ‘mad’ because she was videoing him, defendant explained that, ‘No, I’m mad because you’re not listening.’”
Disputing the severity of Houseton’s injuries, the USAO motion states: “In this case, the testimony of treating physician Dr. Nicole Wojtal, and other evidence indicated that J.H. sustained bruising (i.e., contusions) and abrasions to her scalp, right wrist and right arm,” arguing the difference in the law’s definition of “serious injuries.”
“Although these injuries may have involved some pain and discomfort, they are temporary in nature and did not involve ‘extreme’ pain or ‘protracted impairment’ of a bodily organ.”
If Wilson accepts the post-trial deal as agreed to Monday, Kirk also would be issued a mandatory special assessment of $25 and a fine of up to $5,500.
