CalPERS board restores $99,000 pension for CHP officer convicted of molesting daughters
.JPG "The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, headquarters buildings are photographed Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021, in downtown Sacramento.")
The CalPERS Board of Administration voted Wednesday to restore the $99,000-per-year pension of a retired California Highway Patrol officer who was convicted of sexually molesting his two daughters.
Johnnie Swaim, 56, of Imperial, was convicted of four felonies by a jury in 2013 in Imperial County Superior Court for molesting the two girls when each was under 10 years old. He maintained he was innocent.
Swaim was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In 2016, while in corrections department custody, he filed for retirement based on his last day of work for the CHP in 2011, and started receiving a pension, then worth about $93,300 per year.
CalPERS reduced his benefit last year to about $14,000, wiping out service credit for the time he worked after the date of first felony conviction, which CalPERS identified as in 1997. The retirement system cited a state law that prevents public employees who commit felonies in the course of their work from continuing to accrue pensions.
Swaim appealed, arguing that his convictions weren’t work-related. An administrative law judge sided with him last month, saying that while his crimes were “despicable,” they weren’t connected to his work as a police officer.
On Wednesday, the board voted without discussion to accept the judge’s ruling and restore Swaim’s pension. With cost-of-living increases that have been applied since 2016, it will be worth about $99,000 per year.
In arguing for a reduction of his pension, CalPERS attorneys said Swaim, as a police officer, should be “held to a heightened standard of conduct, even when off-duty.”
The administrative law judge rejected those arguments.
California’s pension forfeiture law is similar to statutes in many other states that require retirees to give up their pensions when the felony is work-related, according to a National Association of State Retirement Administrators summary. Some state laws don’t require surrendering a pension at all.
Swaim was paroled in 2020, according to a Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman.
This story was originally published June 15, 2022 at 2:54 PM.