Christmas in the hackerama is the most wonderful time of the year.
Santa Claus knows who’s been naughty or nice. But if you’re a crooked cop, old St. Nick will never, ever put a lump of coal in your stocking.
That $10,913-a-month kiss in the mail just keeps on coming, more than three years after you’re indicted, month after felonious, thieving, sticky-fingered month.
This morning let’s consider two very naughty little boys who did their stealing as members of the Mass. State Police.
Ex-Lt. Daniel Griffin and ex-Sgt. William Robertson started embezzling thousands of dollars in federally-funded overtime in 2015. After years of stealing, when the stench got so bad, the feds say they “took steps to avoid detention by shredding and burning records.”
The two crooked cops were indicted more than three years ago. And yet they weren’t convicted of conspiracy, wire fraud and theft from government programs until last week in Worcester.
So much for a speedy trial. Which has been very convenient for these career criminals with badges, because all these years, while they were awaiting trial, getting continuance after continuance after continuance, they’ve been collecting their tax-free state pensions.
According to the State Retirement Board, both pocketed their first pension checks on Dec. 31, 2020 – almost immediately after their indictments.
For three years now, while under indictment, Robertson has been grabbing $7,992 a month — $95,899 a year.
Griffin, an even more audacious public-sector fraudster, has been collecting $130,956 a year — $10,913 a month. He went out on disability.
I kid you not. Disability! Since when is kleptomania an officially recognized disease?
Okay, so the two bent cops have finally reached their inevitable destinations – convicted pf multiple felonies, looking at 30-plus years in durance vile. So now their obscenely bloated pensions will end immediately, right?
Wrong! And this is where this morning’s Christmas miracle begins, worthy of a Hallmark Yuletide TV movie. For the crooked troopers, It’s A Wonderful Life. Perhaps it’s not Miracle on 34th Street, but surely we are witnessing Miracle at the State Retirement Board.
Because, you see, just because they’re convicted felons, cops who stole a hot stove and then came back for the smoke, that doesn’t mean their pensions automatically cease.
Under state law, a conviction is not considered final, even though it is, until after sentencing. That won’t be until…. March 20, 2024, although I’m guessing there will be another delay or two or three so that the monthly wire transfers to the robbers can continue ad infinitum.
You ask why the legislature would pass such a preposterous law, to enable hack thieves to continue stealing even more money from the Commonwealth after they’re convicted of stealing.
You know the answer – professional courtesy.
Once the sentences are handed down, whenever that is, the matter of revocation of pensions goes before the State Retirement Board. And of course the board will just automatically terminate the pensions at its next monthly meeting, right?
Wrong again! The proposed revocations will go before a hearing officer, who will no doubt hear arguments from the arrogant millionaire cop thugs that it would be terribly unfair to strip them of their ill-gotten gains because, again, professional courtesy.
Another contention the future jailbirds will probably make is that if they are stripped of their kisses in the mail, it’s only proper and fitting that their “contributions” to the system be refunded to them.
As if they haven’t already grabbed more than they paid in, since their simultaneous indictments and “retirements” back in 2020. According to the Retirement Board, their first checks went out Dec. 31, 2020.
Do the math. For Sgt. Robertson, that’s $96,000 times three, or about $288,000. The “disabled” Lt. Griffin has pocketed $130,000 times three, or $390,000.
It’s not the Retirement Board’s fault, though. They are just following the law, as appalling as it is.
Just before their trial started in Worcester, Griffin pleaded guilty to multiple other felonies, including four additional counts of wire fraud and 11 counts of filing false tax returns.
Hunter Biden could not be reached for comment.
While Griffin was embezzling public funds and shredding documents and filing memos saying the incriminating evidence had been “inadvertently discarded or misplaced,” he was also making $2 million running a “security” business on the side.
The feds say he “hid” $727,000 in revenue from his company and used the corporate income to pay for his second home on the Cape, as well as for golf club expenses and assorted automobiles.
Griffin also pleaded guilty to defrauding the Belmont Hill School of $175,000 in financial aid he wasn’t eligible for. He had two sons and he told the hoity-toity woke school (deep-state alumni include Gen. Thoroughly Modern Milley and Admiral Richard, er Rachel Levine) that he had no money in his family’s 529 college-fund account.
In fact, the greed-crazed Griffin was sitting on $254,847. In addition to the “security” company and the organized embezzlement, he was also “part owner of several Boston gyms.”
Perhaps all his rackets were just Griffin’s way of coping with his… disability.
In 2017, after one of Griffin’s sons “only” got $28,750 in aid from the comrades at Belmont Hill, the trooper became incensed, according to the original indictment.
“GRIFFIN sent a series of emails to the financial aid office complaining that he was being honest about his financial means; that other families were abusing the system by hiding monies… and making significant cash ‘under the table.’”
Honest? You can’t make this stuff up. Belmont Hill coughed another $4,000 in aid to young Griffin.
By the way, just before he was indicted, way back in October 2020, Griffin took a “buyout” of $91,800. That’s on top of the $200,000-plus he made every year, legally. It’s one thing to feed at the public trough. Lt. Griffin licked the plate.
His political hero was Willard Mitt Romney, who also sent his sons to la-de-da Belmont Hill. Griffin donated $1075 to Pierre Delecto.
When the federal heat started coming down, the feds say that Griffin ordered his underlings – “Troopers 1, 2 and 3” – to destroy all the evidence.
“GRIFFIN told Trooper 1, in sum and substance, ‘Don’t tell them (the G-men) bleeping anything.”
Today is Dec. 17. Two weeks from today, Griffin will receive at least his 37th monthly kiss of $10,913 from the taxpayers. On Jan. 31, he’ll pocket another $10,913. And on Feb. 29, and on March 31, and on April 30….
Santa Claus only comes once a year. We take care of the Dan Griffins and William Robertsons and all the rest of the sleazy hacks 365 days a year.
It’s Christmas, baby, and don’t you forget it. As Tiny Tim would say, “God bless us, everyone!”
Especially all the payroll patriots who just keep stealing and stealing and stealing.