SPECIAL REPORT: Pensions for criminals
No crime too big to take away a public pension
Defenses cited for controversial practice
Part of an occasional series on the state public pension system.
Being a crooked cop can cost a police officer his job, his reputation and even his freedom. But not his pension.
Consider Buffalo Detective Sylvestre Acosta, who is serving 45 years in prison, and also collecting a $40,544 annual pension. Or fellow narcotics investigator Gerald T. Skinner, whose $54,751 disability pension was approved while he was behind bars.
It’s the same way with dishonest politicians, like former State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi, who pleaded guilty to defrauding the government but continues collecting his $166,467 annual pension.
And it’s the same with child-abusing teachers, like James Molyneaux of Cattaraugus County, who continues collecting his $52,073 annual pension while in prison for sexually abusing five members of a Boy Scout troop he once led.
They are not alone. Hundreds of public-employees-turned- criminals collect public pensions despite having violated their public trusts.
It’s all legal. In fact, some say it’s a constitutional right in New York State.
But a few Albany lawmakers think change is needed.
“When a person has stolen, committed a crime associated with their job, they haven’t fulfilled their contract — their oath — and don’t deserve their pension,” said Assemblyman Bob Reilly, D-Albany County. “The general public does not want their tax dollars going to reward a person in jail.”
At the highest levels of state government, former Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer, 49, will qualify for his estimated $25,000 annual pension when he’s 55, despite being forced out of office after it was disclosed he was using the services of high-priced call girls.
Sol M. Wachtler, the former chief judge of the State Court of Appeals, served 15 months in prison for stalking an ex-lover and threatening to kidnap her 14-year-old daughter. He started collecting an annual $72,435 pension shortly after he was arrested in 1992.
And in between, Hevesi was forced out of office after pleading guilty to defrauding the government by using state workers as personal aides for his ailing wife. He lost his $151,000 job, but kept a six-figure pension that reflected his years as a Queens College professor, two decades in the Assembly and state and New York City comptroller posts.
Around the state, a Bronx assemblywoman who admitted taking a bribe continues receiving a state pension. So does a state senator convicted of a similar crime, and a Brooklyn Supreme Court justice who took more than $10,000 in exchange for favorable rulings. He gets an $88,554 annual pension.
Locally, a string of Buffalo narcotics detectives arrested on drug-related and corruption charges in recent decades get annual pensions ranging from $5,000 to $55,000.
They include Acosta, who was convicted of stealing money and jewelry from suspected drug dealers after setting up drug raids based on search warrants obtained with bogus information.
Also, Skinner, who was arrested along with Acosta and was sentenced to 30 months in prison under a plea deal he took in the case.
Other crooked cops who are receiving pensions include Detective Robert E. Hill, who got a 41-month sentence for stealing drug money. He collects a $33,563 annual pension.
Pension despite payola
And in a high-profile case that goes back to the 1980s, former narcotics detective Richard
A. Segina was convicted of taking payoffs — the government said as much $300,000 — from a major drug ring in exchange for inside information on police investigations. He began collecting an $8,200-a-year pension in 1998, when he reached age 55.
Also in Western New York, a Niagara County sheriff convicted of stealing food and other items from the county jail receives a $36,399 pension. A Buffalo public works commissioner who illegally took contractor-financed trips gets a $51,819 pension.
And Molyneaux is among educators who continue collecting pensions despite their crimes.
He was sentenced in 2005 to spend up to 50 years in prison for sexually abusing his scouts. The incidents occurred in 1997 and 2000 at a Franklinville camp and Molyneaux’s Portville home in Cattaraugus County. Molyneaux retired in July 2000 from his post as a sixth-grade English teacher at Portville Central School.
In another case, Frontier High School teacher Ronald Norris was sentenced last year to six years and six months in federal prison for possessing digital movies and images of child pornography. He keeps his $49,210 annual pension.
For those wondering, what does it take to lose a public pension in New York—committing murder?
It turns out even murderers — including hit men on the mob payroll — get to keep their public pensions.
Hit men collect
Earlier this year, retired New York City police detectives Louis Eppolito, 60, and Stephen Caracappa, 67, were convicted of orchestrating murders for the mob while they were police officers.
Caracappa gets to keep his $63,000 a year pension. Eppolito gets to keep his $47,000 pension.
Supporters of the current system argue that public employees and officials earned their pensions and that any illegal activity they were involved with at the end of their employment doesn’t take away from the pensions they earned throughout their careers.
“If you’ve put in your 20 years, your commitment has been satisfied [and you’ve earned your police pension],” said Robert P. Meegan Jr. president of the Buffalo police union.
Additionally, some argue, if the employee or official is convicted and imprisoned, the pension often goes to their spouse or children. The spouse and children should not be penalized because of the criminal actions of the pensioner, they said.
“Why should a family suffer if someone is stealing, and the wife and kid didn’t know?” asked Assemblyman Peter A. Abbate Jr., who heads the Assembly Government Employees Committee. “That is their livelihood,” he said of the family pension.
There’s also a concern that pulling a public employee’s pension benefits could violate the state constitution, which in 1938 was amended to say “membership in any pension or retirement system of the state or of a civil division thereof shall be a contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.”
Nonetheless, Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, who is in charge of the state’s pension system, said he recognizes it’s troubling when imprisoned public officials and employees collect state pensions, and he believes the issue is worth looking at. Any review, he added, should be cautious, recognizing that a single crime doesn’t reflect a person’s entire career and every criminal activity isn’t necessarily related to a person’s public employment.
“You don’t want to abuse it the other way,” said Dennis Tompkins, a DiNapoli spokesman.
Currently, there are at least two bills in the State Legislature addressing pension benefits for convicted public employees and elected officials.
Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, is sponsoring legislation that would allow the courts to take pension benefits from elected officials convicted of crimes.
Assemblyman Reilly’s bill goes further, giving courts jurisdiction to strip all or part of pension benefits from anyone in the state pension system — not only those in elective office —convicted of crimes related to their jobs.
Reilly said he’s responded to concerns raised about pulling pension payments by proposing a system where the courts determine how much of a pension a convicted employee is entitled to.
“I would think a judge would say ‘You worked 20 years and you were a good employee, but for the past five years, you were a crook. We will give you a pension for the first 20 years, but not the past five’,” Reilly said.
In addition, he said, the pension benefits could only be pulled for crimes related to the employee’s work. And, the bill allows the courts to determine if the convict’s spouse or children are entitled to the pension benefits even if the employee himself is not.
Complex legal issues
Reilly says he doesn’t believe the state constitution prohibits the Legislature from taking pension benefits from people who violate the public trust by breaking the law while on the job.
Abbate, whose committee is reviewing Reilly’s bill, disagrees, and thinks the constitution is a prohibition. And beyond the constitutional issue, pension forfeiture raises complex legal questions, he said.
“What happens if a pension is taken, and that pension was left in a divorce settlement?”
If a pension were forfeited, he asked, “would the person get the money they put in to the pension system?”
As an alternative, Abbate suggested lawmakers consider longer sentences for public officials and employees convicted of crimes, similar to the way the state “hate crimes” law works.
“I don’t think it’s necessary [to take an employee’s pension],” he said. “I’d rather see a person get more time in jail.”
Abbate himself, however, isn’t interested in introducing such a bill, and he doubts lawmakers who want to reduce pensions of convicted public employees and officials would be satisfied with increased prison terms as an alternative.
“I don’t think it would pass,” he said of a bill with tougher sentences.
News Staff Reporter Mary B. Pasciak contributed to this report.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments