Ex-senator wants double pension

Marzilli resigned amid criminal case

J. James Marzilli may be eligible since he lost reelection.

J. James Marzilli Jr., the former state senator from Arlington who resigned in disgrace after being charged with harassing or attempting to grope women in downtown Lowell, wants the state to nearly double his pension.

In a request submitted to the state Board of Retirement, Marzilli, a 50-year-old liberal Democrat with 23 years of local and state service, cites a state law that allows elected officials under age 55 with more than 20 years of creditable service to boost their pension if they fail to win reelection.

On June 5, two days after his arrest, Marzilli announced he would not seek reelection in the September Democratic primary, and he did not actively campaign for his seat. But his name was on the ballot and he was defeated in the race, losing overwhelmingly to Kenneth J. Donnelly, a retired firefighter from Lexington.

Yesterday, the state retirement board voted, 4 to 0, to postpone action on Marzilli's request until his criminal case is resolved. But the request, which would increase his annual pension from $14,000 to $27,000, stirred immediate outrage from some fiscal watchdog groups, who said the law should be changed to prevent politicians who lose elections from collecting higher pensions.

"They get an additional pension if their constituents get sick of them and throw them out? Am I hearing that right? Only in Massachusetts," said Barbara Anderson, ex ecutive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation. "Enough with the pension nonsense."

Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, echoed the sentiment.

"This is another pension excess that is causing increasing outrage to taxpayers," he said. "You have these thousands of employees who earn legitimate pensions and then these kinds of abuses undercut support for the entire system. It is past time for the Legislature and the governor to close these kinds of loopholes."

Marzilli could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Terrence W. Kennedy, said he had not spoken to his client about the pension request, which was made Nov. 25. The law Marzilli is invoking says any state employee "who has completed twenty or more years of creditable service and who fails of nomination or reelection" can apply for a pension increase.

Anderson said the law acts as a perverse counterincentive to public service.

"The whole point of being an elected official is to do such a good job that you don't get thrown out," she said. "So if there's an incentive that if you do get thrown out and then get rewarded for that, that just kind of scrambles the entire system, which doesn't work under the best of circumstances, but this just makes it worse."

Marzilli served three years as an aide to the House Rules Committee, two years for the town of Arlington, and 17 years as a state representative before being elected to the state Senate last year. He was arrested June 3 after authorities said he tried to grab the crotch of a woman on a park bench in Lowell, harassed another woman in the city, and fled police who tried to question him.

Soon after his arrest, he checked into McLean Hospital for what his lawyer said was a diagnosed case of bipolar disorder. In July, Marzilli pleaded not guilty to several charges including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and annoying and accosting a person of the opposite sex.

Last month, he resigned under pressure from his colleagues after it was revealed that he had represented the Senate at an energy conference in Germany in October. His harassment case is to go trial in April.

If Marzilli is convicted, he could lose his pension under a state law that allows the retirement board to revoke the pension of anyone convicted of crimes "applicable to your office or position," said Nicholas Poser, a Boston pension lawyer. The board invoked the law prominently in 2003, when it revoked the $65,000-a-year pension of John P. Bulger, a retired juvenile court clerk magistrate who pleaded guilty to lying to grand juries about the disappearance of his brother James "Whitey" Bulger.

The board could invoke the law again because Marzilli, as a legislator, was responsible for making laws pertaining to harassment, Poser said.

"That kind of really nebulous connection is fair game in retirement law," he said.

Ralph White, a retirement board member, said the panel would take a wait-and-see approach.

"We don't know how this is going to play out," White said. "The board acted prudently in not taking any action until the case is resolved."

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com