A federal judge will decide later this week whether to allow a Los Angeles County sheriff’s attorney to plea agreement that will release him from jail after he was found guilty of assault and pepper spraying an unarmed woman who filmed him in her 2023 arrest.

During a court hearing Monday, Judge Stephen V. Wilson and Assistant U.S. Rob Keenan spent more than two hours in the highly unusual federal legal manipulation, offering a misdemeanor plea deal to Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy Trevor Kirk for being convicted of felony in an over-force case.

Kirk was convicted in February on a charge of depriving him of rights under legal offences as he was hit by the victim, threw her on the ground, and then squirted her on the face in the 2023 incident outside the Lancaster supermarket.

Wilson said he will rule to accept the requested motion for the next "three to four days."

During the sentencing, he faced a ten-year prison sentence.

But it was a subversion after the Trump administration appointed former California lawmaker Bill Essayli as a U.S. lawyer in Los Angeles last month. On May 1, prosecutors reached a rare post-trial plea agreement with Kirk.

The government recommended a one-year probation term on Kirk and filed a strike jury ruling that Kirk hurt the victim, which made the crime a felony. Kirk agreed to plead guilty, including fewer misdemeanors infringement of the deprivation of rights under the color of the law.

The deal caused turmoil in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, with U.S. assistant attorney Eli A. Alcaraz, Brian R. Faerstein, Michael J. Morse and Cassie Palmer, head of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Division, all withdrawing from the case. Keenan is the only assistant attorney in the U.S. to sign a plea agreement and has not been involved in the case before.

Alcaraz, Faerstein and Palmer filed their resignations after a plea agreement “after trial” was proposed. Application filed last week also confirmed that Palmer will leave the federal attorney's office.

The incident reflects turmoil in Manhattan's U.S. Attorney's Office, a pressure from Trump administration officials to evacuate New York Mayor Eric Adams.

Former California lawmaker Essayli, a determined Trump ally and hard-working conservative, appointed conservatives as the president tried to undermine the Justice Department's independence. In the same week, Trump filed a post-conviction proposal to Kirk in the same week, issuing an executive order to “release” U.S. law enforcement.

In court Monday, Wilson BBQ Keenan was increasingly confusing as he offered Kirk a deal. He questioned whether prosecutors had “serious and significant doubts” about the agent’s guilt and constantly urged Keenan to defend the deal.

"If the government certainly does not provide any explanation for any change, will the court have to approve the motion?" Wilson asked.

Keenan said he believes the court is legally obliged to do so and believes the deal is "pure discretion in prosecution."

In June 2023, Kirk responded to the reported robbery when he threw a woman on the ground and sprinkled pepper on his face while she photographed him at Lancaster Winco in Lancaster. Court records show that the woman was identified as JH only in a federal court application but was referred to as Jacey Houston in another civil lawsuit, matching the dispatcher's description of a female suspect who was not armed or committed a crime when Kirk first faced her.

However, in a 31-page post statement filed on May 13, Keenan elaborated on the actions of the victims before and during the confrontation with Kirk. Kirk uses pepper spray after "JH continues to resist"

"In contrast to other overcompulsive cases, the defendants did not use pepper spray after the cuff or otherwise ensured that JH was not used," Keenan wrote.

Keenan said the evidence did not suggest that Kirk had sprayed Houston on his face in order to cause personal injury. He also described her injuries as “limited duration and severity” and said they did not constitute “severe personal injury.”

In the document, Keenan appears to question the government's evidence related to reported "blunt head injury", calling it "ambiguity even at trial."

On Monday, Keenan described Kirk's use of force as "excessive, but "barely" and once attacked the credibility of the victims in the case, suggesting that she exaggerated her harm in the victim impact statement in court.

Wilson does not accept this analysis.

"The jury had every reason to find that he used too much force to bring her to the ground and sprayed her at her," the judge said. "If he ordered her to be handcuffed... it would be another case."

Houston said morning that Kirk should never be allowed to become a police officer or possess a gun again given his “uncontrollable anger” against her the day of the incident.

"I'm sure I'll die," she said, describing the moment Kirk grabbed her.

Houston attorney Caree Harper said Keenan’s application distorted the reality of what happened in the parking lot that day.

"JH is an elderly person. She has no crime. She has no weapons. She has no attempt to escape. She has no attempt to resist. JH holds dark eyes, fractures of bones on her right arm, multiple bruises, scratches, scratches and a large amount of chemical chemicals burning out of pepper," Harper wrote in court filings. "JH screamed in pain, trying to fill her lungs with oxygen."

Wilson had previously denied YU's motion to be acquitted, finding footage of the incident was enough to prove that the jury found Kirk used "objectively unreasonable power."

"The JH has no weapons, no attack on the defendant, no attempt to escape, and no active crime," Wilson wrote in a ruling last month.

The judge also noted that despite Kirk's active action against Houston from the outset, his partner managed to lead other robbery suspects without using force.

Keenan calls Kirk's concessions proposed by him in the post-trial agreement "important." He said Kirk agreed to admit that he had used unnecessary power when he tried to detain Houston, which he did “deliberately”.

In early 2024, shortly after the Winco incident, Kirk was arrested by his own department for alleged domestic violence against his wife. His attorneys viewed it as non-issue and noted that the victim did not want Kirk to be prosecuted, believing that the alleged abuse was reported by a third party. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said the case was denied due to insufficient evidence.

Harper also said in his filing last week that Kirk had been arrested on charges and he threw his wife on the ground in January 2023. Harper accused Kirk of "threatening to bury (his wife) in the desert."

The Sheriff’s Department’s arrest log only shows arrests in 2024. A sheriff's department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After the prosecution in September last year, support for Kirk began to gain momentum on social media. In January, Nick Wilson, founder of the Los Angeles Sheriff Professional Association's first responder advocacy group, wrote to Trump urging him to intervene before the case goes to trial.

Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who has become increasingly popular in the online right-wing circle, also advocates for Kirk's case, released an Instagram video after the trial, and Wilson comforted the attorney in court. Villanueva and Wilson both insist that Kirk is right.

Veranueva, Wilson and Eseyli all appeared in court on Monday. At one point, Harper approached Essayli directly and asked about the legality of the plea agreement he provided.

Essayli sat in a plastic chair as all the benches in the court were filled, threatening to remove Harper from the court. Harper pointed out that only judges and federal marshals have the right to evacuate someone from the court. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Some deputies also accused the current Sheriff Robert Luna of pushing federal prosecutors to follow Kirk, a fact that Luna denied. As a result, some sub-groups protested against Luna.

However, in the sentencing recommendations obtained by The Times, Luna asked Wilson to sentence Kirk to probation and blamed his behavior on the day for his poor behavior.

He noted that previous department leaders actually ignored the monitoring agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, which aims to authorize the use of mandatory issues at Lancaster and Palmadale stations. Luna's letter did not address whether Wilson should have withdrawn the jury verdict at Essayli's request.

"I am not saying that the department's failure should be immunized by Deputy Kirk or any other representative for his actions," Luna wrote. "No jury found that the agent who used too much force or agreed to a plea agreement should have such immunity."