In the underbelly of Los Angeles County’s most powerful retirement agency, a disturbing pattern is emerging, one that suggests LACERA has quietly built a system where records shift, timelines morph, medical opinions are massaged, and attorneys tasked with protecting injured workers suddenly go silent. In the case of former Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Renko, the evidence now coming to light paints a picture of systemic interference so deep it threatens the very credibility of the disability retirement process.
From the outset, Renko’s file reveals an agency that cannot, or will not, abide by its own rules. LACERA’s Electronic Signature Policy demands verifiable signatures. Its Conflict of Interest Code requires neutrality. Its procedures call for precise documentation and factual accuracy. Yet Renko’s administrative file reads like a patchwork of manufactured reality, altered filing dates, computer-generated signatures, and unexplained inconsistencies that directly violate LACERA’s internal standards. Even more damning, a 2017 LACERA legal memo openly admitted the agency had been misapplying Government Code § 31722 for years. The statute is clear that a disability application hinges on the last day of compensation. Renko’s was November 25, 2016. LACERA ignored that and processed the application as if it occurred months later, warping the legal threshold required to approve his claim.
The legal representation surrounding Renko’s case is equally disturbing. Attorneys who should have been his shield instead became casualties of LACERA’s influence. Renko’s first attorney, Thomas Wicke, produced no written arguments, filed no objections, and mounted no defense whatsoever despite two denials. His silence was not advocacy, it was surrender. What happened next underscores the reach LACERA appears to have over the lawyers who rely on the agency for business. Attorney Michael Treger accepted the case, communicated with LACERA Senior Staff Counsel Jason Waller and hearing referee Stephen Biersmith, and was acknowledged on record as Renko’s representative. Then, after conversations with LACERA personnel, Treger abruptly withdrew without explanation, abandoning Renko at a critical stage. When attorneys start walking away after internal conversations, it raises the specter of pressure far beyond routine administrative friction.
Referee Stephen Biersmith’s handling of the record only deepens the concern. In his administrative summary, Biersmith claimed Renko’s later attorney, Kala Schmidt, ended her representation on December 6, 2023. But documented records show Schmidt continued representing Renko well into January. The December 6 date has nothing to do with Schmidt’s involvement. It does, however, coincide with a major internal shift: Senior Staff Counsel Francis Boyd issued a “NEW REVISED” confidentiality-control policy for all LACERA clients that same day. Renko’s second denial followed six days later. Biersmith’s use of that date looks less like an error and more like an attempt to scrub Schmidt’s ongoing advocacy from the timeline before the fallout from Boyd’s sudden policy revision landed.
Perhaps the most explosive element is the allegation that LACERA legal counsel instructed orthopedic surgeon Dr. Haronian to generate three different versions of the same medical-legal report following a single examination. If true, this is not just a procedural failure, it is medical tampering. A med-legal report is a legally binding document, and altering such an opinion at the direction of agency counsel crosses into territory that threatens a physician’s licensure. Three versions of one exam is not a miscommunication. It is a manipulation of the medical evidence that forms the backbone of disability-retirement determinations.
Taken together, these elements form a chilling portrait of an insular system that protects itself above all else. When documents can be altered, attorneys pressured into silence or withdrawal, medical reports revised on command, and timelines rewritten to shield internal policy changes, the retirement system ceases to function as a safeguard for injured workers and instead becomes a fortress of unchecked power. Experts reviewing Renko’s records warn that the abnormalities are not isolated but indicative of a widespread culture where internal influence overrides due process.
Renko’s case is now headed to Superior Court, where a judge will decide whether these cumulative failures and alleged acts of misconduct invalidate LACERA’s denials. The stakes extend far beyond one deputy. If the court finds the process so contaminated that a fair determination was impossible, it could force a reckoning inside an agency that has operated with near-total autonomy for decades. How many disability cases have been quietly compromised? How many workers have been denied earned benefits because LACERA’s internal machinery was more focused on protecting its own authority than honoring the law?
This is a developing investigation, and as more evidence emerges, and more LACERA insiders step forward—the true scale of this broken system may finally come into view. More updates to follow.
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