Posted on 04/14/2015 1:52:58 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
The wife of a former judge who lost his pension for eliciting sex from defendants contends she is owed half the money because she did nothing wrong, her lawyer told a panel of Commonwealth Court judges Tuesday.
Maureen Cioppa, 73, of Braddock Hills was the last “survivor annuitant” on the pension of her husband, former Rankin District Judge Ross Cioppa, 73, before he pleaded guilty to indecent assault and official oppression in 2012.
Although state law mandates that public employees convicted of certain crimes forfeit their pension, Maureen Cioppa did nothing wrong and should receive her share upon her husband's death, her lawyer, Tim Lyons, told the panel of judges hearing cases in the City-County Building, Downtown.
“Despite Mr. Cioppa's actions, there's nothing to blame on Mrs. Cioppa,” Lyons said.
Paul Stahlnecker, a lawyer for the Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System, said that while Maureen Cioppa would have been owed half of her husband's pension upon his death, he forfeited it when he pleaded guilty.
“We recognize in this case that Mrs. Cioppa is an innocent party,” Stahlnecker said. “The bottom line is that half of zero is zero.”
Judges Anne E. Covey, Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter and Senior Judge James Gardner Colins said they would take the arguments under advisement.
A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System could not provide the amount of money that had been in Cioppa's retirement account. His salary at the end of his 13 years on the bench was $82,000.
Common Pleas Judge Jill E. Rangos sentenced Cioppa to four years' probation, six months of which he served on house arrest.
Authorities said he made sexual advances toward at least two women in exchange for help on their cases. Cioppa blamed his actions on medications he'd been taking.
82K for a judge in PA? Seems very low.
It was not her retirement account.
She was not an employee either.
It was a benefit set up by his employer and had certain conditions on it, which he knew about. He screwed up and lost his retirement account.
It was not her account ever. It was her husbands account and he lost it. she needs to sue him for whatever her “half” was.
He lost his pension, no different than if he had a big IRA and “gambled” it by investing in bad stocks. This is not the responsibility of the state, and the wife should be asking her husband to make up for it, not the state.
IMHO
A little different. Well, maybe a lot.
I once had a Staff Sergeant who was on the promotion list for Sergeant First Class. 16 years service.
He had an affair and his wife went to the Colonel. She wanted UCMJ brought against her hubby. The Colonel warned her that if charges were brought it could be very bad and that she would be better off filing for divorce and walking away with half of his salary and retirement. She demanded that charges be brought.
After the UCMJ the Sergeant was reduced in rank to buck Sergeant, which then put him over the retention control point and he was forced out of the service, without any retirement.
The wife was left with nothing. She should have listened to the Colonel.
His meds made him do it?? Were the meds Viagra?
That would depend on when he was vested wouldn’t it? If he had not yet fulfilled his required years to be vested, then no one is owed anything. If he is already vested, then she was owed money as of the vesting date.
She obviously wasn’t earning her share.
Good one!
There’s always SS and humility.
We do things a little bit differently here. Even our Democrats aren't as corrupt as those in Philadelphia and Scranton.
Your answer is the correct one, or at least it would be in the state in which I practice law.
I’m of the opinion that they should go ahead and give her half to here. Lets see, 1/2 * $0 = $0
I would be OK with her getting all of it. I have no sympathy for men when they let the head without the brains do their thinking for them, especially when they abuse their positions of power in the process.
How would he be correct? She is only entitled to any share of the pension in the event that he dies. He’s not dead, so her share right now is 0%. Not $0, zero percent. And he forfeited the pension, so now he won’t get paid anything, and she won’t when he dies, as there is no pension at that point.
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