By Camas Frank
Five years after the very public shaming that came with a federal misdemeanor conviction and firing, a former San Luis Obispo Police Officer will definitely not be returning to duty.
In 2010, the City of SLO terminated the employment of Ofc. Daniel McDow, following his guilty plea to transporting misbranded prescription pharmaceuticals across the U.S. border with Mexico.
In addition to the legal ramifications of his conviction, the City alleged that McDow violated several departmental conduct policies, in part by having his girlfriend “call in sick” for him while he was in the custody of the Border Patrol.
Since that time, explained SLO’s City Attorney, Christine Dietrick, in a press statement, “McDow has pursued multiple administrative and judicial appeals of his termination, ultimately to the California Court of Appeal. [On Aug. 6], the Court of Appeal issued its decision unanimously affirming the trial court’s decision, which upheld the City Council’s termination decision.”
In short, McDow can’t return to the job he held for eight years before getting in trouble.
The Second District of the Court of Appeal of the State of California, also ruled that the City could, “recover its costs in excess of $5,000 from McDow,” but Dietrick added, “will not be able to recover substantial attorney’s fees or the costs of staff time and other valuable public resources consumed by this case.”
What that boils down to, Dietrick later told the SLO City News, is that the 11 months of paid administrative leave for McDow, ringing in at more than $150,000, is unrecoverable as is her time spent defending the suit.
McDow had originally gone through an administrative review process with a third party arbiter that told SLO City he should be reinstated, however the City didn’t back down and fired him anyway.
McDow sued and the case went to court in April 2014. Seeking full reinstatement with back pay, as well as the deletion of all references to his discipline from his personnel record, he lost in court, and then appealed.
“I think the Court of Appeal really summed up everything for us that we have to say on the matter,” Dietrick said.
