Despite first being revealed by an unnamed source in the Wall Street Journal last spring, it wasn’t until yesterday that CalPERS confirmed there was a criminal investigation involving members of CalPERS board.

At the heart of the investigation is a question of whether a former board member brribed several members of the pension fund’s board to direct billions of dollars of investments to a firms clients.

While still underway, the state investigation ran into trouble when the officials under investigation invoked their Fifth Amendment rights and remained silent.

From the Sacramento Bee:

CalPERS officials today acknowledged that federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into the bribery scandal afflicting the big California pension fund.

In a report to the CalPERS board, senior staff members wrote that “federal prosecutors in California” have sought millions of pages of documents and other information from the pension fund and the Washington lawyer who has been investigating the matter.

The existence of a criminal investigation was reported last spring by the Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources. The report from the CalPERS staff marks the first public acknowledgment of a criminal probe.

Read the full article here.