A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy agreed to plead guilty to violating the civil rights of a California teacher who was beaten up after he flipped off the deputy, authorities said Wednesday.
The deputy, Joseph Benza III, 36, of Corona, was working out of the department’s Norwalk station on Feb. 10, 2023, and was on his way to a domestic violence call when he saw Emmett Brock, who is transgender, gesture at him with a middle finger, officials said.
Benza then “abandoned the call for service he had confirmed and instead began closely following” Brock, “at certain points reaching speeds of over 50 miles per hour,” according to a plea agreement filed in federal court Tuesday.
The pursuit lasted 1.8 miles, ending in a convenience store parking lot, where Benza, without “giving any commands,” grabbed Brock and “violently body slammed” him to the pavement, according to the court document.
Benza punched Brock’s “head and face multiple times” as Brock, a teacher, “repeatedly screamed for help and shouted, ‘You’re going to kill me!’ ‘I can’t breathe!’ and ‘Please stop!’” the court record showed.
Benza “willfully deprived” Brock’s “rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States, including the right to be free from the use of excessive and unnecessary force by a law enforcement officer,” the plea agreement said.
He will plead guilty to one count of deprivation of rights under color of law in a felony civil rights offense, which carries a penalty of as long as 10 years in prison, federal officials said.
“When an officer violates someone’s civil rights, it corrodes trust in law enforcement and undermines the effectiveness of other officers who sacrifice to protect the public,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. “This senseless assault and subsequent attempted cover-up are an affront to our system of justice.”
Benza was still employed by the department Wednesday, but defense lawyer Tom Yu said he expects him to be fired.
Yu said that Benza’s use of force was justified but that he shouldn’t have left the initial domestic violence call and that he was untruthful in parts of his incident report.
“The use of force itself was completely justified, but there were actions that occurred before and after the force that impacted how we evaluated this case,” Yu said Wednesday night, adding that he will ask the court for probation.
“There were allegations that he falsified certain parts of the report, which he didn’t need to.”
Sheriff Robert G. Luna said in a statement that it is “deeply troubling that a member of our Department, who has since been relieved of duty, violated the trust placed in them to uphold the law by abusing their authority.”
“These actions undermine the integrity of our Department, the trust of our community, and the safety of those we are sworn to protect,” Luna added.
Benza admitted filing a false report that did not mention the middle finger incident and said he followed the driver for improperly hanging an air freshener from his rearview mirror, according to the court document.
Benza told three unnamed sergeants that Brock gave him the middle finger, and all three counseled him to leave that information out of the incident report, the plea agreement said.
With the help of an unnamed sergeant, Benza concocted a phony account that Brock was “a threat to his physical safety” and then falsely stated that the victim had “bit defendant’s hand,” according to the court documents.
As a result of the assault, Brock suffered a concussion, bruising, cuts, vomiting and head pain, according to the plea.
Brock said Wednesday that when he got the news about Benza’s plea, he started sobbing.
“I’m very pleased with this outcome,” he said. “I’m still in shock, and I just feel very lucky to have gotten justice for this when there’s a lot of survivors of that [who] don’t, so I’m just greatly appreciative of that.”
Three days after he was arrested in February 2023, Brock lost his job as a 12th grade English teacher at an alternative school for at-risk youths.
He was unemployed for eight months until his substitute teacher license was renewed and he got a job with the Whittier Union High School District in December 2023.
He said he has also been working at a homeless shelter since April and will graduate with his master’s in sociology from California State University, Fullerton, in the spring.
Brock said he still experiences some effects from the trauma of the assault.
“There’s a lot of anxiety still. Even when I just drive my car every day, I am worried about being pulled over and being beaten, and I’m not sure if that’s ever going to go away,” he said. “But this outcome brings me a little bit of peace of mind, as much as it can.”
Brock’s status as a transgender man wasn’t mentioned in Benza’s plea deal.
However, in a separate civil complaint filed in August 2023, Brock alleged that after his arrest and booking at the sheriff’s department’s Norwalk station, staff members asked him invasive questions after he told them he is transgender.
Brock said that he told the staff members that all of his identification documents had been updated to say male but that they still didn’t know which holding cell to place him in.
He said that they asked him questions like “Do you have a penis?” and that a female employee then took him to a bathroom so she could see his genitals.
A trial in the suit is scheduled for October, said Tom Beck, Brock’s attorney. He is seeking at least $10,000 in damages from both Benza and the sheriff’s department.
Beck said he’s pleased with the plea agreement.
“It’s my lifelong wish that people in law enforcement live up to their public statements that they disapprove of this kind of felonious behavior and they will hold their employees accountable,” he said. “I can give you 100 cases in which they said that and nobody went to jail.”