Pension Fraud

Some workers across New York are significantly inflating their pensions by dramatically increasing their overtime hours in the final few years of employment, according to a preliminary report on pension padding just issued by N.Y. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. 

The State of California has filed a civil suit against former California Public Employees Retirement System (“CalPERS”) Board Member Alfred Villalobos, his company ARVCO Capital, and former CalPERS CEO Federico "Fred" Buenrostro, charging them with fraud.

David Loglisci, the former Chief Investment Officer at the Office of the New York State Comptroller (“OSC”), who was indicted last year along with co-defendant Henry “Hank” Morris, has pleaded guilty to a felony for his role in what N.Y. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo call a “culture of corruption” that permeated the New York State pension fund.  

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month striking down federal campaign finance reform legislation led to much hand wringing, and probably just as much hand clapping. What may have gotten lost in the hullabaloo is that we live in a federal system. An announcement today by N.Y. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo shows that the government – or at least some government – still has power to limit campaign contributions. 

Good morning! There’s an article in today’s Newsday reporting on continuing efforts by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli to revoke the state pensions of five Long Island lawyers as part of his probe into private lawyers representing school districts and being listed as district employees. 

We’ve written a lot about the fight in New York over lawyers in private practice seeking pension benefits for representing school districts and other local governments as “employees.” For example, see http://www.financialfraudlaw.com/lawblog/long-island-lawyer-pay-more-249k-settle-pension-abuse-allegati

As a former practicing lawyer and school board trustee, we’ve paid a lot of attention to an alleged pension abuse scandal first reported last year by the Long Island newspaper Newsday. Some lawyers working in private practice for school district clients claimed that they were employees of the districts, or had the districts report them as employees, and they thereafter claimed entitlement to a state-guaranteed defined benefit pension plan.