A state appeals court panel Friday upheld the conviction of a former Torrance police officer found guilty of a series of crimes committed during his work as a bail agent, but ordered a new sentencing hearing for him.
Rehan Nazir, now 53, was convicted of 17 criminal charges stemming from crimes involving nine victims between 2017 and 2019 in Torrance, Gardena, Manhattan Beach, El Segundo, Rolling Hills Estates, Lakewood and Long Beach, Deputy District Attorney Monique Preoteasa said shortly after Nazir’s conviction.
Jurors acquitted the Torrance resident of nine other counts and deadlocked on two charges that were subsequently dismissed.
He was sentenced in November 2023 to 27 years in state prison.
The three-justice appellate court panel rejected the defense’s contention that there was not substantial evidence to support his convictions for kidnapping and some of his convictions for false imprisonment and extortion, along with the defense’s claim that there were errors in Nazir’s trial.
But in vacating Nazir’s sentence, the justices noted that he was sentenced before an August 2024 California Supreme Court ruling that established framework that requires the trial court to consider whether dismissing a sentencing enhancement would “endanger public safety.” The panel directed Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Andrew C. Kim to reconsider Nazir’s motion to dismiss the sentencing enhancements and to re-sentence him.
The case against Nazir stemmed from an investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Major Crimes Bureau and the California Department of Insurance in connection with allegations that he apprehended bail clients before their required court appearances and threatened to return them to jail if they did not pay him money or give him property, according to the state Department of Insurance.
Investigators determined that Nazir employed so-called “bounty hunters” to assist him in locating and apprehending several people that he had bonded out of jail before their required court appearances, according to the Department of Insurance.
Nazir was terminated by the Torrance Police Department after the District Attorney’s Office determined that he had submitted false information in a report by failing to include documentation about the use of a confidential informant, according to a U.S. District Court ruling in 2012 involving his case against the city.
He went on to work as a bail agent, with the Department of Insurance noting that the defendant’s bail agent license expired in June 2019.
Nazir has remained behind bars since his arrest by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in July 2019.
The case had already been before the 2nd District Court of Appeal once, which ordered another judge to re-hear a motion he had denied by the District Attorney’s Office to dismiss certain firearm enhancements against Nazir as a result of a directive issued by then-District Attorney George Gascón shortly after his election.
Nazir’s attorney, Joseph Weimortz, told reporters after the sentencing that the District Attorney’s Office subsequently withdrew its motion to dismiss the firearm allegations. He said it was a “massive amount of hypocrisy on the part of this office” to abandon “what would be fair justice in this case.”
“His status as a former police officer and bail agent means he has no friends,” the defense attorney said.
The prosecutor noted in court that Tsao indicated he would have denied such a motion even if the District Attorney’s Office supported it because he hadn’t heard the evidence in the case.
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