This story was originally published by The Merced FOCUS.
Livingston city officials are reviewing an anonymous letter that alleged one or more city council members helped local police officers complete their degrees.
One member of the Livingston City Council, however, has acknowledged participating in that activity – but says he wasn’t an adult when it happened.
City officials remain tight-lipped about how they will respond to the letter. The issue came to light nearly an hour into the Oct. 21 city council meeting, when Mayor Pro Tem Gurpal Samra read the unsigned, anonymous letter into the record.
“It kind of concerns me. I don’t know if it’s true,” he prefaced before reading the letter addressed to city officials.
No further comment will be provided at this time, Livingston’s City Attorney Marc Tran told The Merced FOCUS in an email. Both Mayor Jose Moran and Interim Police Chief John Ramirez declined to comment.
Anonymous letter
The letter alleged that one or more council members helped police officers obtain “unlawful online degrees.” It further alleged that unnamed council members wrote reports and took exams in exchange for money “which resulted in higher pay.”
“Don’t protect, investigate. If this is true, it’s a loss of public trust and unlawful,” the letter read. It was signed by “concerned citizens from Livingston.” It is unclear who wrote the letter.
Samra asked that the letter be handed over to the city manager, city attorney and the interim chief of police for further review and to verify the claims.
“If we have officers getting higher pay for something they haven’t earned, that is a major concern to us,” Samra said during the public meeting.
He also questioned the credibility of officers completing investigations if they received an online degree with help, as the letter alleged.
Samra was not aware of the allegations in the letter before it was submitted to city council, he told The FOCUS.
Councilmember apologizes in statement
Two weeks later, Livingston City Councilmember Japjeet Uppal released a statement to his social media page. In his Facebook post, he wrote that he helped former Livingston police Sgt. Wapinder Kang with coursework for his degree while Uppal was a 16-year-old in high school. He received $1,000 for doing so.
“As an adult, I take full responsibility for my part in this misconduct… This experience has taught me a lasting lesson about honesty, integrity and accountability,” he wrote.
It was Kang’s role as a family friend and position as a police officer that Uppal said pressured him to help with his coursework.
After the letter was read into record, Uppal felt compelled to release a statement.
Community members largely thanked Uppal for his honesty. Other feedback acknowledged that he was in high school when the situation occurred.
“Way to go for owning the situation with transparency and integrity!” one user wrote.
“Thank you for being honest and sharing with the community. It takes courage to acknowledge when we’ve made a mistake, especially about something from the past,” another member wrote.
Between his junior and senior years in high school, Uppal said he helped Kang complete coursework for an online degree program, including discussion posts and papers, he told The FOCUS.
Uppal, 23, was elected to the Livingston City Council in November 2024. He announced his campaign on his LinkedIn profile, calling for action in local politics. Outside of city council, he is a football coach at Livingston High School.
The council did not bring up the allegations publicly at the next two meetings, which lasted multiple hours.
Former officer embroiled in controversies
Wapinder Kang was sworn into his position as an officer with the Livingston Police Department in 2010, but is no longer on the force.
During his time with the department, Kang faced more than one controversy that raised local media attention.
In 2021, Kang and another officer, Harjinder Heer, were accused of filing a false police report. A Merced County judge dismissed Kang’s case in court the following year, the Merced Sun-Star reported.
In another case, that year, the Merced County District Attorney’s Office and California Secretary of State investigated allegations of voter fraud against Kang and his brother Gagandeep Kang, but no action was taken.
The FOCUS was unable to reach Wapinder Kang for comment on this story.