I-Team: After Falling Through Cracks, Convicted Employee's Pension Stripped

BOSTON (CBS) - Taxpayers will no longer be funding the retirement benefit of a former public employee whose federal conviction slipped through the cracks for more than six years.

On Friday, board members of the Massachusetts Teachers' Retirement System (MTRS) voted to strip the $70,000 annual pension of Joseph Giordano.

The former school administrator at Whittier Regional-Technical School in Haverhill had been convicted of using his position to fraudulently obtain school funds in late 2009.

According to state law, that probably should have spelled the end of Giordano's pension. When public employees commit crimes related to their jobs, they forfeit their taxpayer-funded retirement benefits.

However, the I-Team discovered a communication breakdown had allowed Giordano to continue collecting more than $350,000 of pension payouts.

When public employees typically forfeit their pensions, they receive the personal contributions they put into the system (without interest).

But because Giordano has collected the full pension for several years, his forfeiture is retroactive. An attorney representing the MTRS told the I-Team it is still unclear how much Giordano will be asked to pay back.

In a related story the I-Team exclusively reported this week, the Winthrop Retirement Board held a private forfeiture hearing on February 23 for Angelo LaMonica, the town's former police chief.

LaMonica was convicted in a 1995 federal corruption case, but kept his pension and has since received nearly $1 million.

Retirement officials in Winthrop are now reviewing the case to see if LaMonica's pension should have been forfeited.

Based on the evidence presented at the closed hearing, an attorney representing the retirement board will be drafting a recommendation. The board will vote on the issue at its April 26 meeting.

Ryan Kath can be reached at rkath@cbs.com. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on Facebook.