A former Santa Clara police officer deserves a prison term for aiding a Hell's Angels motorcycle gang member, according to federal prosecutors working on the case.
Clay Rojas, 38, was arrested in 2010 on 12 felony counts after he fed information to William "Billy" Bettencourt, a convicted felon who rides with the Santa Cruz chapter of the Hell's Angels. He was convicted of leaking to Bettencourt criminal histories, DMV records and other "privileged internal law enforcement information" in order to pay off a debt of several thousand dollars, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
Rojas, a five-year veteran of the Santa Clara police department, was fired in 2010 following his arrest. Prosecutors say he deserves a prison term of three years or more for his crimes, according to the newspaper.
Rojas, who served as a Marine in Iraq and now works for a company that handles military contracts for the federal government and NATO, fed Bettencourt information because of a "lapse" in judgment, he told the court.
He also didn't sell the information to pay off his debt, according to his defense attorney -- a strange claim given his saying so to police brass at the time.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh is expected to sentence him in San Jose federal court sometime soon.
