Suburban Chicago: Crooked cop gets to keep pension

Illinois has the nation's most-underfunded public employee pensions. Cases like this one aren't the reason--union overreach and simply not stashing enough cash away are the main culprits--but $5,600 a month here, $5,600 a month there...soon it's a lot of money.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Two crooked Melrose Park cops — the chief and his deputy — got convicted of the same crime.

One got his pension yanked this week.

But the other will keep on receiving more than $5,600 a month in benefits, in a highly unusual decision by the Melrose Park Police Pension Board.

Both former Police Chief Vito Scavo, 62, and his right-hand man, Deputy Chief Gary Montino, 54, were convicted of racketeering conspiracy in 2009 for their roles in a scheme to muscle local businesses into hiring the two security firms Scavo illegally ran out of the police department.

By law, cops convicted of a felony forfeit their pension benefits. Scavo had his pension yanked in full view of the local media and other attendees. But when the crowd thinned out, Montino got his approved.

Well, it's Illinois, after all.

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