In 2012, as part of the Public Employees Pension Reform Act (PEPRA; Gov. Code, § 7522 et seq.; Stats. 2012, ch. 296, § 15), the Legislature enacted section 7522.72, under which a public employee forfeits part of their pension upon conviction of a felony “for conduct arising out of or in the performance of [their] official duties.”  (§ 7522.72, subd (b)(1) (hereafter § 7522.72(b)(1)).)  This appeal presents a question of first impression about the scope of that phrase.  The Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) decided that it encompassed the conduct for which a federal jury found former San Francisco Deputy Sheriff April Myres guilty of mail and wire fraud (18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343).  The trial court denied Myres’s petition for a writ of administrative mandate.  We agree with her that, while her criminal conduct related in some ways to her position, it did not “aris[e] out of or in the performance of . . . her official duties” (§ 7522.72(b)(1)).  We reject CalPERS’s expansive view that, to satisfy that standard, conduct need only be “job related.”  That view ignores the statute’s text and has no support in precedent.  We reverse.

https://www4.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A170516.PDF