An Oakland Police detective who was arrested two years ago on bribery and perjury charges under former District Attorney Pamela Price continues to face the music for his alleged misdeeds. And multiple cases linked to him have ended in dismissal or lenient plea deals.
Pamela Price may no longer be the DA in Alameda County, and her campaign to expose and prosecute the misdeeds of police officers is ostensibly over. But one of those she accused of improperly coercing and bribing witnesses to get murder convictions, Phong Tran, continues to be in the spotlight and is likely still headed to trial. As the East Bay Times reports, cases continue to pile up in which the credibility of evidence and witness statements obtained by Tran is being questioned, leading to more dismissals and plea deals in serious cases.
In one case last October, a 34-year-old Sacramento man, Donte Neal, was able to cut a deal for an 11-year sentence in the 2021 killing of Byron Robinson, the ex-boyfriend of his wife, after it was discovered that Tran may have paid off an anonymous tipster to finger Neal two days after the crime…