Ex Livingston police sergeant, cleared of charges, plans to return to work, attorney says

A former Livingston police sergeant is planning to return to his career in law enforcement after criminal charges were dismissed in court this week, his attorney said.

The case against Wapinder Kang, in which he was accused of filing a false report, was dismissed by a Merced County judge on Monday at the end of Kang’s preliminary hearing.

“He’s not working right now,” said Roger Wilson, Kang’s attorney. “He has to go through a process with the city of Livingston. I think he has to go before the City Council and talk about his case.”

Kang and Officer Harjinder Singh Heer were arrested in July last year after they allegedly wrote a false report in order to protect a correctional officer’s job after he set off illegal fireworks. The correctional officer’s wife was cited instead of him, the incident report says.

The purpose of a preliminary hearing is to determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed to the trial phase of the case. Wilson said the judge dismissed the case after the prosecution couldn’t show any evidence to tie Kang to the alleged false report.

“Nevertheless, the prosecution tried to assert that somehow, (Kang) influenced the verbiage in the report,” Wilson said. “It’s our opinion that the case should have never been filed because they didn’t have sufficient evidence to even file it, and I think the judge saw that.”

Kang was accused of aiding and abetting the filing of a false police report by directing a subordinate officer to include false and misleading information in his police report, according to a Merced County District Attorney’s Office news release.

Prosecutors said they had submitted body camera evidence and a police report authored by a junior officer in evidence in the case.

Still, that was not enough to convince a judge to move the case forward to trial.

“Although we do not agree with the judge’s decision, we respect the court’s ruling. It is the policy of this office, when evidence of public corruption that amounts to a crime is submitted to the District Attorney’s Office, we will vigorously prosecute the case. Public matters like this case should be dealt with in a public forum,” Merced County District Attorney Kimberly Lewis said in the release.

Heer, also a former police officer, has a pre-trial hearing scheduled for March 25.

According to court documents, Heer was previously convicted of a misdemeanor for driving under the influence with a 0.08% or more blood alcohol concentration in June 2019.

This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 7:22 PM.