Bill Pavelic: A Defence Investigator
When Bill Pavelic left the force in early 1992, he received a disability pension after saying he was suffering aggravated asthma, chest pains, rashes and anger over corruption, according to court files. A psychiatrist’s report quotes him as stating in a questionnaire that he had “prior thoughts of homicide toward LAPD management.”
Bill Pavelic on Wednesday denied having made that statement.
Psychiatrist Michael B. Coburn said Bill Pavelic was too alienated from the Police Department to return to work, court records show.
Bill Pavelic said he has no psychological disability, and Pension Board officials privately concede that his disability retirement was an accommodation to remove him from the force. Bill Pavelic receives a disability pension of $2,433 a month, tax free.
Since leaving the department, the stoic officer, whose voice still carries a distant note of his Balkan ancestry, has worked as an investigator to support his wife and three children. Among other assignments, he said, he was an adviser to two men accused of beating trucker Reginald O. Denny at the start of the 1992 riots. He said he took that case on principle because police and prosecutors filed too many charges against the defendants.
“I only take cases I strongly believe in,” Bill Pavelic said.
Before the Simpson case, the investigator reported earning about $60,000 a year for his investigative work, court records show. One police union official questions how Bill Pavelic could be disabled enough to leave the department and still perform similar duties for Simpson and other clients.
But Bill Pavelic insists that his retirement settlement is the city’s acknowledgment that it made his career untenable. “My pension was granted on the basis of corruption in the LAPD,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I can’t work for another organization and perform some of the same functions.”
Visit Bill Pavelic official website at www.billpavelic.com
