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A San Mateo County sheriff’s deputy charged earlier this year with abusing his young son in Livermore is asking the court to grant a mental health diversion program to resolve the criminal case against him, according to court records.
Steven Romero, 34, faces one count of felony corporal injury to a child – plus special allegations of inflicting bodily harm, hurting a vulnerable victim, violating a position of trust and engaging in violent conduct – for the incident reported at his house in western Livermore in late winter, while he was already on leave from the sheriff’s office for an unrelated matter.
Livermore police allege Romero choked his 5-year-old son and dragged the boy by the ear to the bedroom during a confrontation that began when the boy took too long to eat breakfast for his father’s liking.
Romero, who has pleaded not guilty and is out of custody, was admitted to an addiction and mental distress recovery center for first-responders in Malibu about a month and a half after the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office filed the charges against him, according to court records from the defense – which later submitted the motion for diversion in July.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Elisa Della-Piana is scheduled to hear the matter this week, with prosecutors opposing the defense bid for mental health diversion in the child abuse case. Romero’s attorney, Rabin Nabizadeh, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The arrest of the sheriff’s deputy appears to have gone unreported in the media for months, until KTVU Fox 2 broke news of the case last week. The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training temporarily suspended Romero on Sept. 2.
Romero remains on the same leave from the sheriff’s office that he has been on since April 2025 for an unrelated matter, while the department also now continues to investigate his arrest in the Livermore case, according to Gretchen Spiker, the sheriff’s director of communications.
“During Mr. Romero’s leave, criminal allegations were brought to the attention of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office,” Spiker said. “The alleged conduct occurred off duty in Alameda County while Mr. Romero was on leave, which remains ongoing. In addition to Alameda County’s criminal investigation, the Sheriff’s Office is conducting a thorough internal administrative investigation.”
The charges stem from an incident at the family’s house on the morning of March 8, as outlined in a probable cause declaration written by Livermore police Officer Hayley Hawkins.
The boy took longer than the 15 minutes he was allowed to eat breakfast and was punished by being forced to jump rope, according to Hawkins.
“When John Doe wasn’t jumping rope quickly enough, his father choked him multiple times by his mouth and neck and then dragged John Doe into his room by his ear. The ear dragging led to bruising, approximately 3 by 1 cm in size,” Hawkins wrote.
The officer noted the boy was treated at a hospital, where the attending doctor determined the injuries were consistent with physical abuse.
The Livermore Police Department did not report publicly at the time that its officers had arrested a sheriff’s deputy, nor does the probable cause declaration mention Romero’s law enforcement status.
The DA’s office charged Romero with felony child abuse on April 28, and the deputy pleaded not guilty on May 7.
As the case proceeded in the early stages, Romero was admitted to First Responder Recovery Malibu on June 8 for treatment of issues including alcohol and cannabis addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression, according to a letter submitted to the court three days later by Dr. Stephen Mohaupt.
The defense filed a motion to request mental health diversion to resolve the case on July 24, which the DA’s office objected to. The two sides were originally set to argue the matter last month, but the hearing was continued while they worked out issues of records.
The case is on the calendar for a pretrial hearing in Della-Piana’s courtroom at 9 a.m. Tuesday (Sept. 15) in the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland.
