A state appeals court has handed a major win to a former San Francisco deputy sheriff, ruling she can keep most of her CalPERS retirement despite a federal fraud conviction. The First Appellate District concluded that the crimes she was convicted of did not “arise out of or in the performance of” her official duties, a legal line in the sand that turned out to be crucial.
As reported by Bloomberg Law, the court reversed a San Francisco Superior Court decision that had backed CalPERS’s partial forfeiture of the deputy’s pension and sent the case back for more proceedings. CalPERS had argued that her use of department resources and other job-connected details tied the fraud closely enough to her employment to justify docking her benefits.
How the court framed the forfeiture test
The appellate panel said Government Code section 7522.72, part of the 2012 Public Employees' Pension Reform Act, requires a specific causal link between the felony and the employee’s official duties, not just a loose or incidental job connection. The opinion, published on Justia, reversed the trial court’s denial of the writ and laid out why the statute cannot be stretched as broadly as CalPERS urged.
What the conviction involved
April Myres, a longtime San Francisco deputy sheriff, was convicted in federal court of mail and wire fraud in a scheme tied to an insurance claim she filed for items she said were stolen, including a department-issued handgun and radio. The Ninth Circuit later affirmed the convictions but vacated the original sentence on procedural grounds. On remand, she received time served and supervised release, as described in the federal opinion on FindLaw.
CalPERS' position and the lower courts
After the convictions, CalPERS decided the conduct arose out of or in the performance of Myres’s official duties and withheld the portion of her pension tied to roughly nine and a half months of service. An administrative law judge and the San Francisco Superior Court both agreed with that determination. The Court of Appeal pushed back, saying CalPERS’s reading of the law would let the agency strip benefits whenever a conviction had even a tangential relationship to the job, a result the judges said did not square with the statutory language.
Why the ruling matters
The decision tightens the standard that CalPERS and other retirement boards must meet when they attempt to reduce benefits under Section 7522.72. Going forward, forfeiture efforts will likely require clearer evidence that the felony was central to the employee’s official duties or involved core government authority. The statutory wording remains the same, but courts will now look for the closer causal connection the appellate panel described; see Government Code section 7522.72 on California Public Law for the forfeiture text.
Next steps for the parties
CalPERS can still seek review from the California Supreme Court. Under state rules, any petition for review must be filed within a limited window after the appellate opinion becomes final, and the California Courts’ guidance on petitions for review explains the timing and process for taking that next step.
