Suit over CHP officer who shot his wife and her boyfriend settles for nearly $5 million

Lawyers in a case involving a California Highway Patrol officer who shot his wife and her boyfriend before killing himself in 2018 have agreed to settle the case for $4.925 million, one of the largest payouts involving the law enforcement agency in recent memory.

The settlement agreement comes just weeks before a trial was to begin June 7 and ends three years of legal wrangling over whether the agency bore responsibility for the actions of Officer Brad Wheat, who shot his wife, Mary, to death and wounded her boyfriend, Trae deBeaubien.

Sacramento attorney Stewart Katz sued the CHP and two therapists the agency brought in to evaluate Wheat after the officer made threats about violence as his marriage was crumbling and his estranged wife had begun dating deBeaubien.

Katz said the CHP agreed to pay $3.95 million, while insurance firms for therapists Sabrena Swain and Joy Graf agreed to pay a total of $975,000.

DeBeaubien said in a statement issued to The Sacramento Bee that he “is glad to finally be able to put this case behind him and glad that the CHP finally did the right thing in admitting they messed up.

“Hopefully, the CHP re-evaluate their procedures on officers with mental issues,” he added.

A CHP spokeswoman declined comment Tuesday, citing pending litigation and the fact that final settlement documents have not been filed with the court.

Wheat told a fellow officer on Aug. 3, 2018, that he had tried to find the couple and kill deBeaubien, then himself, according to court documents and a CHP email that Wheat’s supervisor, Lt. Todd Brown, sent to agency officials.

“I just learned this evening that Brad confided in an officer (Dave Ward) tonight that he drove to a location where he thought his wife and her lover were last night to murder the lover and then commit suicide,” Brown wrote. “Officer Ward was able to secure his duty weapon and we have a sergeant (Jeremy Dobler) en route to Brad’s location to try to get a hold of him.”

The CHP persuaded Wheat to hand over two rifles and a shotgun and leave his .40-caliber handgun and hollow-point ammunition at CHP’s Amador office while he took two weeks off, court papers say.

Swain, a licensed marriage family therapist, talked to Wheat and other CHP officials at Wheat’s house the night of Aug. 3, 2018, and determined he was not a danger to himself or anyone else, according to a December 2020 deposition she gave in the case.

Graf, another therapist, met with Wheat at the CHP office on Aug. 14, 2018, and concluded he was able to carry out his desk duties, court papers say. She was not told about his earlier threat or the fact that he had handed over his weapons, Katz has said.

The CHP never warned deBeaubien or Mary Wheat of the potential for violence and returned Brad Wheat’s weapon to him when he reported for work on Aug. 20, 2018.

CHP officials said in court filings that they did not have authority to seize Wheat’s firearm, and that Wheat’s statement that he had gone hunting to kill deBeaubien and himself did not constitute a crime.

Two weeks after the CHP returned his firearm, Wheat confronted the couple at deBeaubien’s Sutter Creek fitness store, shooting out the front window and walking into the store through the broken glass.

“She was screaming at him, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’” deBeaubien recalled in an interview with The Bee.

“Are you really going to f------ shoot us? Are you really going to kill us?” deBeaubien said he shouted just before Wheat shot him in the upper chest near his left shoulder.

DeBeaubien tackled Wheat, but lost his grasp because of the blood pouring from his body, and Wheat chased his wife toward the front of the store.

DeBeaubien tackled him again while Mary Wheat grabbed the CHP-issued firearm and tried to fire, but the gun did not go off.

Outside in the parking lot, Wheat got his gun back and shot his estranged wife in the head twice and fired a third shot that hit her arm and pierced her chest.

Wheat then shot himself twice in the neck and once in the head.

The case, which Katz worked on with lawyers Eric Grant and John Thomas, is the latest multimillion dollar settlement involving the CHP, including an agreement the agency made last year to pay former CHP Officer Jay Brome $2.2 million to settle a lawsuit he filed claiming he was driven out of the agency because he was gay.

The CHP also agreed to pay $4.5 million last year to settle a lawsuit filed by a Santa Ana woman who claimed she had been sexually assaulted by an officer twice, once during a traffic stop.

This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 5:00 AM.