The Chris Ortloff online sex-solicitation case has generated a lot of talk hereabouts over whether someone on the public payroll should be allowed to collect a pension if convicted of a serious crime.
As the law stands now, Ortloff can indeed collect a pension, even though he will spend an as-yet unspecified number of years in prison for a despicable crime. He will be able to collect $44,000 a year for life, although he will lose all the Social Security benefits he earned during his life. People who are imprisoned are not eligible for Social Security or Supplemental Security Income.
Some people even outside Ortloff's family are glad he will receive his pension, since his family will in some small measure be compensated for the heartache he has undoubtedly caused them by trying to arrange a sexual liaison with two pre-teen girls in a Colonie hotel room.
Ortloff earned his pension with 20 years in the State Assembly and another stint on the State Parole Board. New York state law says that pension cannot be taken from him, no matter how egregious his behavior.
But should he be able to collect from the state he swore to serve but betrayed in the worst way possible?
We would argue that, while Ortloff's pension is untouchable, the law should be changed so that future public employees and elected officials would know that, if they stray from their oath of office, they will be jeopardizing lifetime security for themselves and their families.
Many states have provisions in their laws withholding public pensions from felons. New York has discussed amending its laws to similarly penalize lawbreakers. A listing of recent misdeeds by state senators and members of Assembly, as enumerated on the North Country Gazette Web site, would practically demand it:
The site notes that, among others, Sen. Guy Velella, Judge Victor Barron, Assemblywoman Gloria Davis and Comptroller Alan Hevesi have all been forced from office by scandal but continue to collect sizeable pensions. They have been found guilty of assorted acts of bribery or misuse of funds. Barron, Davis and Velella did some jail time; Hevesi did not.
Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer will be eligible to collect a pension, even though shamed from office by a prostitution scandal.
On a moral scale, all pale next to Ortloff, who will apparently serve time in a state prison.
Thus, we encourage elimination of pension benefits for felons, not as a punitive measure but as a deterrent. Maybe if public officials who are tempted to break their covenant with their constituents knew they would be risking not only immediate censure and embarrassment of one kind or another but long-term security and comfort for themselves and those close to them, they would be rattled back to righteousness.
Would the prospective loss of $44,000 a year have persuaded Ortloff not to make that fateful contact through his computer last June? No one knows. But it would relieve some of the deep resentment many feel over paying the pension to him while he is in prison.
Opinion
January 5, 2009
EDITORIAL: Pension loss a deterrent to crime
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