A former California police officer fired after being charged with unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor is fighting CalPERS to keep his industrial disability pension.

The California Public Employees Retirement System has sought to deny the pension on the grounds that he was removed from his job due to criminal misconduct. The CalPERS Board of Administration will take up up the matter when it meets on Nov. 17.

Jason Bemowski, a former police sergeant with the Chino Police Department, has since pleaded no contest to criminal charges that he had unlawful sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old girl in December 2018.

He was arrested by the Roseville Police Department and placed on administrative leave in March of 2019. He applied for a disability retirement a month later, according to CalPERS. An industrial disability retirement is a kind of pension available to public safety employees that allows them to retire at a younger age with full benefits and avoid paying income tax.

CalPERS maintains that Bemowski is not eligible for the disability retirement because he was facing serious discipline or termination at the time he applied for it.

“His employer terminated him for conduct that predated his application for disability retirement. His application had not matured when he was terminated because CalPERS had not already granted it; he was not terminated because of his alleged disability; and there was no evidence of any disabling condition prior to his filing, let alone the required ‘undisputed evidence,’” CalPERS staff wrote in a report recommending the Board of Administration reject Bemowski disability pension.

CalPERS staff cited evidence collected by the Roseville agency in the last two weeks of December 2018 to make its case against Bemowski’s disability pension.

“Bemowski made and received dozens of phone calls to numbers associated with prostitution ads, exchanged hundreds of text messages with phone numbers associated with prostitution ads, and exchanged dozens of text messages with the underage girl with whom he paid to have sex,” according to a CalPERS staff summary of the case.

In addition to the criminal charge of sex with a minor, Bemowski was accused of sexually harassing a female subordinate whom he was responsible for supervising.

“Bemowski repeatedly sent inappropriate,unsolicited and unwanted sexual text messages to this officer. She felt intimidated by Bemowski’s conduct because he was her supervisor, the sergeant of the Professional Standards Unit, and because she was still on probation,” according to CalPERS staff.

The Chino Police Department formally terminated Bemowski on Oct. 1, 2019, after nearly 18 years of service.

According to the website Transparent California, at the time of his firing Bemowski was making $97,000 a year in regular pay and $186,000 in total pay and benefits.

Doctor supported officer’s disability claim

A month after he was placed on administrative leave, Bemowski applied for an industrial disability pension, alleging that he had suffered injuries to his shoulders and back while training in 2002.

Bemowski was evaluated by an orthopedic doctor, “who determined that he had suffered disabling injuries on the job and was no longer able to carry out his duties as a peace officer,” according to Bemowski’s appeal.

In appealing CalPERS’ initial decision denying him industrial disability retirement, Bemowski argued that he was eligible for that retirement because, despite being on administrative leave at the time of his application, he was still a paid member of the police department.

Bemowski’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

City urges CalPERS to reject disability pension

In August, an administrative law judge, Ji-Lan Zang, agreed with Bemowski’s argument, issuing an opinion which found that the legal precedents which CalPERS cited as grounds for denying the retirement did not apply to the case.

The judge wrote that “if (Bemowski) were to be deprived of his disability benefits while he was placed on administrative leave, pending the outcome of his personnel complaint, such a conclusion would violate the fundamental principle that (Bemowski) cannot be presumed to be guilty of the underlying conduct until the personnel complaint was completed.”

CalPERS staff have appealed the judge’s decision, arguing that the judge was erroneous in applying the law.

A spokesperson for CalPERS declined to comment on the case beyond what was included in publicly available documents.

The administrative law judge’s decision also was criticized by Alfonso Estrada, an attorney for the City of Chino, who “strenuously” urged the CalPERS board to deny Bemowski retirement.

“The proposed decision in this matter is wrought with deeply troubling conclusions and a hyper-technical and flawed interpretation of the law. The result of this tortured analysis is that a convicted felon who preyed upon a minor female victim of human sex trafficking will be permitted to pursue his application for IDR benefits on the merits,” Estrada wrote. “The proposed decision in this matter is premised on a tortured rationale that basically ignores that the act which gave cause for Bemowski’s termination actually occurred on December 23, 2018 when Bemowski victimized a 16 year old minor female victim of sex trafficking.“

This story was originally published November 10, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "California police officer fired over sex crime fights CalPERS to keep disability pension."