He bought a Zumba shirt after hearing the tape - and wore it to the hearing
A police pension board tried three times to strip disabled officer's benefits. An appeals court just shut them down and called out members for bias.
The officer was injured on duty in May 2011 while working for the Marion Police Department. Two physicians diagnosed a herniated disc and a bone spur pressing on a nerve root in his upper spine, found the damage permanent and surgery too risky, and concluded he could not return to active police work. The board granted a line-of-duty disability pension in July 2012.
Then came a decade-long tug-of-war. The board terminated benefits in 2018; a circuit court reversed. It terminated again in 2021; the Fifth District Appellate Court reversed that too.
Round three arrived in November 2024. Six days before the hearing, the officer's lawyer dropped a recording of a March 2023 board meeting onto the table.
In it, one member bet the officer would "come in jogging" to collect his paperwork. The same member said he was "probably teaching Zumba someplace." A second member wanted to "go for broke" at the next hearing and approved the court-ordered retroactive payment only "under protest."
The officer bought a Zumba shirt after hearing the tape. He wore it to the hearing.
Both members were asked if they could be impartial. Both said yes. The motion to exclude them was denied.
At the hearing, the board leaned on an examiner who concluded the original injury was merely...
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