Hmm. I thought pensions were sacrosanct and couldn’t be garnished or taken. In what many be a first, federal prosecutors want to garnish the $10,419 a month pension for former judge Steven Jones, who is in prison for swindling investors in non-existent water rights deals. The garnished money would be used as restitution for victims.
Jones gets out of prison in April 2017 and the pension is scheduled to start Nov. 2017. The Public Employees Retirement System of Nevada is opposed to the feds grabbing the money. The feds say federal law overrides state law, even as this may be the first time garnishing a pension has been attempted by federal authorities.
Jones is certainly a scumbag and has been permanently disbarred and banned from running for judicial office again. He and an associate swindled upwards of 22 victims out of $2.2 million over ten years. He was making $200,000 a year as a judge. But that wasn’t enough? Go figure. However this seems an unprecedented move by the feds, and that makes me nervous.
What do you think?
What rational reason is there
for protecting anyone’s pension
after a criminal conviction?
I thought pensions generally were specifically protected from seizure. This could be a bad precedent.