Defeated CalPERS Board Candidate Says Election Was Rigged Against Him

Former board member J.J. Jelincic protests the October 17 election, claims CalPERS team plotted to thwart his candidacy.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) just wrapped up its October board election for the retired member representative seat on the CalPERS Board of Administration between Henry Jones and Joseph “JJ” Jelincic, with Jones declared the victor on the results certified on October 17.

Jones is the incumbent in the election, and the retired chief financial officer for Los Angeles Unified School District. Jelincic is a retired investment officer for CalPERS.

But following the election results, Jelincic penned a letter to the pension’s board, calling for the election results to be overturned and a new balloting be held.

“Unfortunately, the grounds for the protest are several,” Jelincic wrote in his statement. “Preliminarily, however, we may never know the full extent of the violations in this election, as many of them appear to have been orchestrated by CalPERS Board members and staff.”

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Jelincic claims that CalPERS utilized governmental resources to undermine his campaign’s efforts to win the election. One such example, Jelincic said, was “the CalPERS Office of Public Affairs was directly involved in attempting to disseminate stories accusing Mr. Jelincic of sexual harassment.” He continued that CalPERS staff tried to “get the attacks” published by Chief Investment Officer magazine, Bloomberg, and the Los Angeles Times.

“This is a process and we’re following it, so we do not have a response at this time,” a spokesperson for CalPERS said.

Jelincic also said State Treasurer Fiona Ma had authored a letter, posted on the California State Treasurer Twitter account, “attacking Mr. Jelincic and demanding that he abandon his campaign,” he said in the protest document.

In August, Ma wrote “I recently signed a letter with…[seven] other prominent women in California calling on J.J. Jelincic Jr. to drop out of the race for the CalPERS board after his history of harassing women was revealed by the Sacramento Bee.”

“It matters that three women at CalPERS felt so uncomfortable working with Jelincic that they filed harassment charges against him, and that their allegations were upheld by the California State Personnel Board,” Ma wrote in the statement. “Instead of apologizing to these women, Jelincic claims there is a conspiracy against him.”

Jelincic, in his letter, said there was “an anti-Jelincic dark money group calling themselves ‘Concerned Retirees for Pension and Health Care Security.’ Within a month of that group being formed, it had funded a mass mailing intended to appear as if it was from Treasurer Ma…These employees were permitted (and likely encouraged) to use CalPERS resources to campaign against Mr. Jelincic.”

Outside of the scenario related to sexual harassment allegations, Jelincic also alleged that the current voting system for CalPERS was rife with issues that potentially degrade the election’s integrity and credibility. He said that the election process does not provide for any independent verification of either the number of ballots mailed or returned, and also that the envelopes used to return the marked ballots were see-through, allowing someone to tamper or remove them from the election before they are officially counted.

The issue of sexual harassment is gaining attention in the California pension community. An assembly of California pensions formed an anti-sexual harassment coalition earlier this year called Trustees United. The group contends that such violations not only have a compelling adverse effect on corporate culture and human capital management practices, but also create material risks to investment portfolios and financial performance as a result.

Related Stories:

Arizona Pension Fires Top Executive for Sexual Harassment


California Pensions Convene Anti-Sexual Harassment Coalition


Council of Institutional Investors Calls for Corporate Board Governance to Mitigate Sexual Harassment

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Highly Educated More at Risk of Pension Scam

The more schooling you have, the more likely you are to fall for a con artist.

Apparently too much knowledge can indeed be a dangerous thing as the more highly educated a person is, the more likely they are to fall for a pension scam, according to research from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and The Pensions Regulator (TPR).

Analysis from the regulators’ joint ScamSmart campaign indicates that people with a university degree are more susceptible to common scam tactics than those without a degree. For example, those with a university degree are 40% more likely to accept a free pension review from a company they’ve never dealt with before, and 21% are more likely to take up the offer of early access to their pension pot.

“Scams can happen to anyone,” Nicola Parish, TPR’s executive director of frontline regulation, said in a release. “Pension scammers ruin lives, stealing away decades of savings with professional-looking websites, ‘expert’ advice and an easy manner making it tough to spot the fraud.”

The research also found that overconfidence could lead to savers missing the signs of a scam. Although 63% of those surveyed said they are confident about making decisions regarding their pension, the same percentage said they would trust someone offering pensions advice out of the blue. The regulators caution that is one of the telltale warning signs of a scam.

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The analysis from the regulators also showed how devastatingly fast someone could lose a lifetime of retirement savings. They said that while it can take 22 years for a saver to build a pension pot of £82,000 ($105,359), which is the average amount victims lost to scams in 2018, they can lose all of that in less than 24 hours.

“We know many people have big plans for their retirement,” Mark Steward, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said. “Pension scammers destroy those dreams, often forever. Reject unsolicited approaches offering ‘help’ with your pension and get advice from an FCA authorized firm before making big changes to your pension fund.”

The data for the analysis came from two surveys. One survey, which was conducted in June, polled 2,012 adults aged 45-65 with a pension. The second survey was conducted in October and polled 2,005 adults aged 45-65 with a pension.

The ScamSmart website is available for consumers to get tips on how to spot  techniques used by fraudsters, and it hosts the FCA Warning List, which names firms and individuals that the FCA said are operating without its authorization.

Related Stories:

Millions at Risk of Falling for Pension Scams

UK Pension Scams Are All in the Family

FCA Says Too Many Advisers Giving Bad Pension Advice

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