Pennsylvania is restoring the nearly $5,000-a-month pension of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky that was taken away when he was sentenced to decades in prison on child molestation convictions, after a court ruling favored Sandusky Friday.
A Commonwealth Court panel ruled unanimously that the State Employees’ Retirement Board wrongly concluded Sandusky was a Penn State employee when he committed the crimes that were the basis for the pension forfeiture.
“The board conflated the requirements that Mr. Sandusky engage in ‘work relating to’ PSU and that he engage in that work ‘for’ PSU,” wrote Judge Dan Pellegrini. “Mr. Sandusky’s performance of services that benefited PSU does not render him a PSU employee.”
Sandusky, 71, collected a $148,000 lump sum payment upon retirement in 1999 and began receiving monthly payments of $4,900.
The board stopped those payments in October 2012 on the day he was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison for sexually abusing 10 children. A jury found him guilty of 45 counts for offenses that ranged from grooming and fondling to violent sexual attacks. Some of the encounters happened inside university facilities.
The basis for the pension board’s decision was a provision in the state Pension Forfeiture Act that applies to “crimes related to public office or public employment,” and he was convicted of indecent assault and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
The judges said the board’s characterization of Sandusky as a Penn State employee at the time those offenses occurred was erroneous because he did not maintain an employer-employee relationship with the university after 1999.
The judges ordered the board to pay back interest and reinstated the pension retroactively, granting him about three years of makeup payments.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
If this is true it’s a disgrace………..how dare this person (and I use the term loosely) collect ANY kind of back pay or pension or whsatever funds there are to collect. Why can’t they be. 1. Be divided amongst his victims to pay for therapy then. 2. Donated to a child abuse fund to help others of abuse……… (was that answer pc enough??????)
Spot on, Patricia.
They should have just hung Sandusky.
Disgusing! That $5,000 should be given to this monster’s victims. Pedophilia trickles down from the highest pedophiles in our unholy, demonic corporate government. I’m outraged at this use of taxpayer money (all corporate money comes from the taxpaying consumers) to fund crimes against our own children and support those who commit them!
“taxpayer money (all corporate money comes from the taxpaying consumers)”
Huh? Just because money comes from a taxpaying person doesn’t mean the money is taxpayer money. The money consumers use to buy stuff is what we have left over after we pay taxes. Taxpayer money would be money the corporation received from the government, not from a consumer.
A large part of that monthly pension should go to the prison to pay for his upkeep. It isn’t fair that the taxpayers are having to support him in prison while making him wealthy through the pension system. This is double dipping in the worst sense.
The judge in this case should lose his pention and be fired for wasting the people’s money.
THAT GOES TO SHOW ALL OF YOU,HOW CROOKED THE SYSTEM IS TOO!!WHY WOULD THE DUMB JUDGE GRANT THIS TO THIS UGLY PIC.OF YOU KNOW WHAT!?WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE WE HAVE SITTING AS JUDGES???MONEY SHOULD GO TO THOSE POOR PEOPLE THAT NEED AND SHOULD HAVE HAD SOME KIND OF HELP,!WHAT A SORRY ASS WORLD WE LIVE IN!! NO WONDER THE WHOLE WORLD GOING TO HELL! AND THE VERY SAD PART IS….NO ONE READS THIS,AND NO ONE GIVES A SHIT!THE STATE “STILL”GOING TO “GIVE”THIS ASS THE MONEY!! HE SHOULD STILL STAYED IN PRISON,WHY WAS HE LET OUT,WHEN HE DID ALL THOSE THINGS TO KIDS????
We the people need to remove from our gov. And schools, plus courts of these perverted immoral unjust so called people, any money any of these perverts have or ever have should be took away, and put in a account that our gov. Can’t touch for help of victims, we have let the perverts get to much power, they seem to think they can do what ever they want, our Constitution dose not give immoral perverted any power, and our courts are to protect not allow what we all know is wrong.
Truly discussing , he should not be able to collect anything at all ,,. Give the money to the children .. The ones he used so freely to lead them to destruction ,,
well lets go to the problem after the creep took advantage of these kids while on the payroll that our government pays to the school and that’s the judge. he should be fired and never allowed to be on the bench again. what a disgrace he is to the human race. I would like to know what he was thinking when he made this decision.
just to disappointed in our justice dept. can’t understand how he got on the bench.
Sandusky and Pellegrini probably share the same circle of friends. That would not be unusual.
No matter what happens with the money it is still taxes collected from the private sector. All government pay and benefits are unfunded because the government does not generate income.
Nearly all government spending is from private sector taxes, both business and employees.
That said, only the private sector in this case loses!