A California appeals court has sided with a former San Francisco Deputy Sheriff, April D. Myres, ruling that her felony convictions for mail and wire fraud did not stem from conduct “arising out of or in the performance of” her official duties, thus protecting her vested pension benefits from forfeiture under state law.
The ruling tackles a question of first impression regarding the scope of Government Code section 7522.72(b)(1), a provision enacted as part of the landmark Public Employees Pension Reform Act (PEPRA). This statute mandates that a public employee forfeits part of their pension if convicted of a felony related to their official capacity. The Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) argued for a broad interpretation, suggesting Myres’s crimes were sufficiently “job related,” but the Court of Appeal disagreed, reversing the lower court’s decision that had upheld the forfeiture.
The Underlying Facts: Insurance Fraud and a Secret Relationship
The case centers on a complex series of events involving Myres’s nearly 20-year career with the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office (SFSO), primarily as a jail guard. Her troubles began when she secretly maintained a romantic relationship with an inmate, Antoine Fowler, violating SFSO policy.
After Fowler was released in 2016, the relationship ended contentiously. Fowler allegedly burglarized Myres’s home, stealing personal property, including her SFSO-issued gun and radio. Myres subsequently filed a homeowners insurance claim with Farmers Insurance for approximately $66,000 in lost items.
During the claims process, Myres engaged in conduct that formed the basis of her later criminal conviction: she falsely claimed ownership of the SFSO-issued gun and radio, and used an SFSO fax cover sheet when sending amended paperwork, falsely identifying her direct supervisor.
Federal prosecutors ultimately charged Myres and Fowler with mail and wire fraud related to the insurance claim, and Myres was also charged (though later acquitted of that specific charge) with giving a felon a firearm. In the end, a federal jury convicted Myres only of mail and wire fraud. Jurors later indicated they based the conviction on false claims regarding three luxury items, not the department-issued gear.
CalPERS Seeks Pension Forfeiture
Following her conviction, CalPERS determined that Myres’s mail and wire fraud felonies “arose out of” the performance of her official duties, triggering the pension forfeiture provision for the last nine and a half months of her service.
CalPERS argued that Myres’s actions—including lying about the firearm ownership, misrepresenting her supervisor, and using her employer’s fax machine—were sufficiently connected to her employment. The administrative law judge (ALJ) and the San Francisco trial court agreed, citing the federal sentencing judge’s comments that Myres “abused her trust as a sworn law enforcement officer.”
The Court Distinguishes “Job-Related” from “Official Duties”
The Court of Appeal approached the case by focusing strictly on the statutory text of section 7522.72(b)(1). The court rejected CalPERS’s central argument that the standard should simply be whether the conduct was “job-related.”
The appellate court noted that while legislative history suggests the law targets felonies committed “in carrying out official duties,” the final text broadened this slightly to “arising out of or in the performance of… official duties.” However, the court emphasized that the focus must remain on “official duties,” not mere connection to employment.
The court heavily scrutinized CalPERS’s reliance on prior appellate cases (*Wilmot* and *Hipsher*) which had used the shorthand term “job-related.” The court found that those cases only addressed constitutional challenges to the statute itself and never actually interpreted the scope of the “arising out of or in the performance of official duties” requirement. The court stated that using shorthand in unrelated contexts is not binding authority on statutory interpretation.
Analyzing Myres’s Convicted Conduct
The Court of Appeal then analyzed the specific conduct for which Myres was convicted—mail and wire fraud—to see if it met the statutory link.
The court struck down several of CalPERS’s arguments immediately. Myres’s illicit relationship with Fowler, her concealment of that relationship from the FBI, and her deception about him to SFSO were deemed irrelevant because those actions did not satisfy an element of the federal mail/wire fraud charges, which required a scheme to obtain *money or property* from Farmers Insurance. The court cited federal case law (*McNally v. United States*) establishing that these fraud statutes focus on property deprivation. Concealing Fowler’s role was aimed at protecting her job, not defrauding the insurer out of a payout she was otherwise entitled to for the personal items.
The remaining conduct involved the lies about the SFSO-issued gun and radio and the use of the agency fax machine. While these acts clearly related to her employment, the court found they lacked the necessary nexus to her *official duties*.
“In submitting an insurance claim for the burglary of her home, she engaged in a personal business transaction unrelated to her official duties,” the opinion stated. The court reasoned that falsely claiming ownership of work equipment during a personal claim is not the same as committing a crime *in the performance* of a duty, likening it to an off-duty shooting incident involving a service weapon. Similarly, using the fax machine was a personal act, even if done off-duty, and did not arise from the execution of any official duty.
The court also dismissed the sentencing judge’s comments about her “abuse of trust.” The appellate court concluded those comments primarily served to justify a harsher sentence due to her status as an officer, not that the specific criminal conduct itself arose from her official duties as required by the forfeiture statute.
Concluding that a narrow interpretation is necessary to avoid constitutional issues (such as violating the contracts clause by impairing vested pension rights), the Court of Appeal found that Myres’s conduct fell outside the statute’s scope.
The judgment ordering pension forfeiture was reversed.