HAYWARD — At a highly contentious trial in which jurors saw only a portion of the courtroom drama, retired Hayward police Sgt. Michael Beal was convicted Wednesday of nine counts of felony grand theft for cheating a mentally ill former police confidential informant out of up to $500,000.

Beal, 57, was taken into custody on Wednesday morning after the guilty verdicts were returned. He had been released from jail on his own recognizance during the trial by Judge Thomas Rogers, which is highly unusual in a felony case, despite having $420,000 bail. He faces up to eight years in state prison at his sentencing scheduled for March 29. He already served 19 months in jail while awaiting trial.

The jury heard more than two months of evidence and deliberated for almost three weeks, including over a week with a replacement juror, before finding Beal guilty as charged.

“The length of their deliberations showed there was ample reasonable doubt,” said Beal’s attorney, Austin Thompson. “I’m disappointed, but I think the appeals court will not have a similar delay in overturning the verdicts.”

Throughout the trial, prosecutor Connie Campbell appeared at odds with Judge Rogers, a former colleague in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. Rogers frequently accused her of lying and questioning his authority and threatened to hold her in contempt.

“I have never been happier to have a case in the hands of a jury,” Campbell said Wednesday.

Thompson said at one point he started asking for a mistrial every day, largely because the prosecutor failed to comply with judicial orders but was never admonished in front of a jury.

According to court documents, Campbell learned after the trial started that Rogers and Beal had worked closely together when Rogers was a prosecutor. A handwritten commendation from Rogers was in Beal’s personnel file but was brushed off when she raised the issue of a potential violation of the judicial canon of ethics. Beal was a police officer at the Hayward Police Department for 27 years that overlapped with Rogers’ police officer son in the department. Related Articles Former Hayward police officer charged with scamming mentally ill woman of a half-million dollars

“I do not believe that there was any bias on behalf of the judge, but I do not think Beal got a fair trial,” Thompson said. He described the note from Rogers in Beal’s file as “nothing special” and claims the DA’s office bombarded the defense with so many audio recordings and documents that Beal’s release from custody was a necessity. “If there was any bias, it was against the defense.”

One of the most shocking moments of the trial occurred outside the jurors’ presence when Rogers accused Campbell and Inspector Jeff Israel of trying to destroy Beal’s reputation by describing the victim in the case as a mentally ill and vulnerable person in public court documents. In the judge’s opinion, the complaining witness, Pleasanton resident Nancy Joe, was not vulnerable and may not be mentally ill and the prosecution team should have contacted the media to correct any reports describing her as so.

Campbell continues to contend that Joe is mentally ill and vulnerable, particularly to Beal whom she looked up to since he arrested her in a prostitution sting and then used her as a confidential police informant. Joe lived her life like a homeless transient, collecting recyclables, panhandling and prostituting herself, but she also lived with her mother and had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank.

“I believe it was a smart, empathetic jury who could see how vulnerable Nancy Joe was,” Campbell said.

The prosecution team contends that Beal took up to $500,000 from her for an investment property in Alameda that he never purchased, and dangled a possible marriage between them. Joe reported Beal to Hayward police in 2014 upon learning that he retired without her knowledge. She said she expected to sell their shared property or get married once he retired.

Thompson agrees with the judge that Joe was not a vulnerable person and said he believes she manipulated Beal in secretly recorded phone calls to get him to say things that fit the prosecution’s narrative.

Beal testified that he invested Joe’s money in a Modesto house and he moved his ex-wife and children into it. He said he and Joe’s 12-year acquaintance was “bizarre,” but he never had sexual relations as she claimed and he never promised to marry her.

He said they were involved in numerous small cash business deals over the years before he bought the property on their behalf. He said keeping the location of their shared property concealed from her was a condition of their arrangement, and he was planning on taking over the payments but got arrested before he could.