Tony Befford was acquitted by a San Francisco jury on May 28 of a felony assault charge after jurors found he acted in self-defense while confronting a man he said had stolen his wallet, according to the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, which represented him and announced the verdict. The case highlights what defense attorneys describe as a pattern of prosecutorial overcharging that results in unnecessary incarceration and wasted public resources.
The case stemmed from a Jan. 29 altercation near MacLaren Park, where Befford said he realized his wallet and phone had gone missing after visiting the park with an acquaintance. Befford returned to the park to search for his belongings and saw a man pick up his wallet and put it in his pants. When Befford approached the man to ask for the wallet back, the man walked away. After several attempts to retrieve the wallet, the interaction escalated into a physical fight. Befford maintained that the other man punched him first and that he punched back in self-defense.
When police arrived at the scene, the alleged victim accused Befford of robbery. That same night, however, the man found the very items he had claimed Befford had stolen. Nearly two weeks later, he recanted the robbery accusation to police. By then, prosecutors had already charged Befford with robbery, and a judge had ordered him held in jail. The robbery charge was eventually dismissed, but the case proceeded to trial on the felony assault charge.
Deputy Public Defender Naira Der Kiureghian, who represented Befford, said police failed to adequately investigate her client’s account of the incident. “From the beginning, police did not believe Mr. Befford’s repeated assertions that his wallet had been stolen and that he had been attacked,” Der Kiureghian said in a statement released by the Public Defender’s Office. “They did virtually nothing to investigate his account of what happened, and ended up accusing him of robbery even though it was Mr. Befford whose wallet was stolen that day.”
She added that prosecutors “overstated this case and wasted public resources—and jurors’ time—carrying out a multi-week trial on a charge they could not prove.”
The jury ultimately found Befford not guilty of felony assault but guilty of a lesser misdemeanor assault charge related to the fight. He was sentenced to time served after already spending four months in jail—longer than the maximum sentence allowed for the misdemeanor conviction, according to the Public Defender’s Office.
San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju framed the outcome as part of a broader systemic issue with how the District Attorney’s Office charges defendants. “I’m grateful that the jury in this case weighed the evidence carefully and found that police and prosecutors had overcharged Mr. Befford,” Raju said. “Overcharging by the District Attorney’s Office happens frequently and often results in long, damaging periods of unnecessary incarceration for our clients, heavier workloads for the defense, and a waste of public resources.”
Befford’s defense team included Der Kiureghian, paralegals Madison Matthies and Sandra Reyna, investigators Carolyn Phillips, Emily Guerin and Gary Sourifman, and social worker Mileti Afuha’amango, the Public Defender’s Office said.
The case adds to ongoing scrutiny of overcharging practices in California’s criminal justice system. Critics, including public defenders’ offices across the state, argue that aggressive initial charging decisions can keep defendants detained before trial for periods that sometimes exceed the sentences ultimately imposed, even when the most serious charges are later reduced or dismissed entirely. In Befford’s case, the initial robbery charge kept him jailed for months before it was dropped, and he ultimately served more time than the misdemeanor conviction would have allowed.
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