Former City of Bell Police Chief Randy Adams will have to get by on a $240,000-a-year pension after an administrative law judge turned down his bid to have it nearly doubled. That leaves him as the eighth highest pensioner in the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).

Adams was Bell chief for just one year, but that was long enough to boost his pension payout to $510,000 because of a generous compensation package that doubled the salary paid him as police chief by his previous employer, Glendale, a city six times the size of Bell. The cities of Glendale, Simi Valley and Ventura would have paid the lion’s share of the higher pension payout. 

Adams was ousted in 2010 when a scandal in Bell, which probably cost the tiny Los Angeles County municipality $20 million, was exposed in a series of articles by the Los Angeles Times. Ensuing investigations at the local and state level resulted in eight officials being charged with public corruption, including Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo.

Although Adams was not charged in the Bell scandal, he has been one of its central characters. Rizzo and his deputy, Angela Spaccia, were implicated in a scheme to jack up Adams’ salary by spreading it out across two contracts. Subsequent grand jury testimony indicated the contracts had been improperly backdated and not approved by the city council.

Adams did, however, take the stand and testify, so to speak, at a three-day hearing last month over his claim that CalPERS had wrongly denied him credit for his time with Bell and should pay him the higher amount. But he cited the Fifth Amendment guarantee against self-incrimination 20 times in refusing to answer questions. When asked to review a folder of documents compiled by CalPERS, he refused because, he said, he wasn’t going to comment on anything in it.

Judge James Ahler upheld CalPERS’ decision, which Adams can appeal back to a 12-person CalPERS board or file a lawsuit to overturn.

He has already sued the city for severance pay.

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

Judge Rejects Former Bell Police Chief's Bid to Double Pension (by Jeff Gottlieb, Los Angeles Times)

Former Bell Police Chief Takes the Fifth 20 Times (by Jeff Gottlieb, Los Angeles Times)

Ousted Bell Police Chief Sues for Severance Pay (by Ken Broder, AllGov California)