Oakland probes disability pay of ex-cop who's now FBI agent FBI special agent still gets $52,000 in disability pay

Video: Ex-Oakland Cop Receiving Disability Payments While Also Working For FBI

Oakland officials are investigating why a former police officer is collecting $52,488 a year in medical disability benefits from the city even though he has been working as an FBI agent in Boston.

The unusual case of FBI Special Agent Aaron McFarlane, 41, came to the attention of Oakland officials after the agent was identified last week as the federal officer who shot and killed a key figure last year in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation.

The disability benefit that McFarlane is collecting under the California Public Employees' Retirement System is awarded when a worker is unable to perform the usual duties of his or her current position "due to an illness or injury that is expected to be permanent or of an undetermined duration," said Joe DeAnda, a CalPERS spokesman.

Those on disability retirement are banned from doing similar work for any other government agency in California.

Oakland spokeswoman Karen Boyd said the lifetime payments that McFarlane receives include a 2 percent cost-of-living allowance for each of the past 10 years.

Ibragim Todashev, who was being questioned in Orlando by authorities in the Boston Marathon bombing probe, was fatally shot Wednesday, May 22, 2013 when he initiated a violent confrontation, FBI officials said.

Ibragim Todashev, who was being questioned in Orlando by authorities in the Boston Marathon bombing probe, was fatally shot Wednesday, May 22, 2013 when he initiated a violent confrontation, FBI officials said. Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Oakland probes disability pay of ex-cop who's now FBI agent 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

Retired in 2004

"The city of Oakland is investigating the matter and will take further actions as appropriate," Boyd said.

McFarlane retired from the Oakland Police Department on medical disability in 2004, four years after he joined the force as a patrol officer.

He became an Oakland officer the same year that "the Riders" scandal broke, in which four other Oakland officers were accused of beating and planting drugs on suspects in West Oakland. The accused officers weren't convicted, but McFarlane testified for the defense and took the Fifth Amendment when a prosecutor suggested that he had lied on a police report.

McFarlane joined the FBI in 2008, according to the Boston Globe, which reported that McFarlane was the FBI agent who fatally shot Ibragim Todashev, 27, in his Orlando apartment on May 22, 2013, after Todashev allegedly flung a table at him and brandished a metal pole at a Massachusetts state trooper.

The shooting occurred after McFarlane and two state troopers had questioned Todashev for more than four hours about his connection to one of the two men accused of planting bombs at the Boston Marathon last year, the Globe said.

In an interview Thursday, Kieran Ramsey, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston, declined to confirm McFarlane's identity, details about his being hired or any issues surrounding his pension, other than to say that prospective agents undergo a "very rigorous background investigation."

The FBI website says "physical fitness is often the factor that spells the difference between success and failure - even life and death." It said those who want to become agents "must be in excellent physical condition with no disabilities which would interfere in firearm use, raids or defensive tactics."

'Does seem odd to me'

The media attention on the agent's background, Ramsey said, "has nothing to with what happened in that room that day." He added that no criminal charges have been lodged against the agent, who used "justifiable deadly force" against Todashev.

McFarlane's Oakland disability benefits, however, are raising questions about how he was able to join the FBI.

"It does seem odd to me that somebody would be on disability from one agency and be hired by another agency," said Tony Ribera, a former San Francisco police chief and the director of the International Institute of Criminal Justice Leadership at the University of San Francisco.

Civil rights attorney John Burris, who frequently sues the city of Oakland for alleged misconduct by police officers, said he was "sickened" by what he called "the real scam that takes place when officers take medical retirement and go on to another job, and the city is stuck with it. It's pretty shocking to me that the officer with his record at OPD winds up with the FBI. It makes you wonder about the screening process."

Oakland Councilwoman Pat Kernighan said she wants to know why McFarlane is still collecting disability.

"I am concerned about why our disability retirement allows a disability payment to continue even after an officer is able to return to work at some other law-enforcement agency," she said. "I find it very surprising, and I would like to find out how that can happen, and if it is somehow legal."

Sgt. Barry Donelan, president of the Oakland Police Officers Association, on Thursday described McFarlane as a "solid guy, a good guy" who, like many officers working in high-crime environments, "are the ones that on a regular basis put themselves between decent, hard-working citizens and many of society's worst."

Donelan stressed, however, that he was not familiar with details of McFarlane's pension and what happened after he left the Oakland force.

'Happens all the time'

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in Sacramento, said he wasn't surprised to hear that McFarlane was collecting a disability pension and yet working as an officer elsewhere.

"I think it happens all the time," Coupal said. "There is huge incentive to take that disability retirement because it is tax-free and more generous."

Coupal said city officials and pension administrators need to do a better job investigating officers who win disability benefits.