A Pennsylvania arbitrator ruled that Jerry Sandusky should receive his $4,900-a-month pension payments as well as back pension payments dating back to October 2012, when he was convicted on 45 counts of sexually abusing 10 boys.
The state of Pennsylvania ended Sandusky’s pension payments upon his conviction. But from the Associated Press:Hearing examiner Michael Bangs wrote in an opinion dated Thursday but made public Monday that it was clear the former assistant football coach was no longer a Penn State employee after his 1999 retirement. That was critical to the pension dispute because the state Pension Forfeiture Act was expanded five years later, in 2004, to add sexual offenses to the list of crimes that trigger forfeiture.
“The Pennsylvania forfeiture law is simply not applicable to SERS’ members who commit crimes after they have begun receiving their pensions, which is really what SERS is attempting to do in this case,” Bangs wrote. “The courts simply cannot extend the current law beyond any rational interpretation of its current form.”
Following responses from Sandusky’s camp and the State Employees’ Retirement System, the state’s retirement system board will decide whether to follow the arbitrator’s recommendation and reinstate Sandusky’s pension. The AP report states that decision could come this fall, though if it rules against Sandusky he could register an appeal in state court.
If the board rules in favor of Sandusky in November, for example, he’d be owed 25 months of back payments -- which comes out to $122,500.