By Joe Mahr
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — Nearly nine months after he admitted to misusing money meant for a police nonprofit, a former suburban police chief could learn Thursday whether he will keep his six-figure pension in a case that highlights the legal debate on how and when to stop retirement checks to cops found to be corrupt.
State law requires a pension be taken away if an officer is convicted of a felony that relates to, arises out of or is connected with his or her work as an officer. Ex-Countryside police Chief Timothy Swanson is now serving a 27-month sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty in January to felony charges he committed fraud and pocketed money meant for a police helicopter program he ran while chief of Countryside and, later, in the Kankakee County sheriff’s office.
The Countryside police pension board is set to meet Thursday afternoon for its board to mull the issue and, possibly, issue a decision on whether Swanson will keep his $101,000-a-year pension. The board also could delay the vote.
Swanson argues he deserves to keep getting his pension because he really admitted only to wrongdoing related to “personal tax issues” concerning the nonprofit and a side firm he began, according to legal filings by his attorney. Those filings argue that his misdeeds were “of an individual nature” and had “nothing to do” with his job as chief.
“Swanson should not lose his retirement pension because there is no connection between his felony convictions and his employment as a city of Countryside police officer,” wrote his attorney, Richard Puchalski.
Countryside, however, argues that the only way Swanson could have begun the police helicopter nonprofit — and collected hundreds of thousands in donations later misused — was because of his job as chief. The military-surplus helicopters were formally registered to the city, and Swanson put Countryside police logos on them. He worked on the nonprofit at times from his chief’s office, solicited some donations while in uniform, signed some solicitation letters on Countryside letterhead using the title of chief, and had secretaries — on city time — solicit and track donations for the nonprofit.
“It is clear that Swanson not only breached the public’s trust by engaging in an illegal scheme which he operated out of the Police Department’s office, he also used his position of authority to ‘direct’ unsuspecting city employees to assist him in his fraudulent scheme,” attorney Terrence Sheahan wrote on behalf of the city.
Even if Swanson loses his pension, there is a debate about whether he should get money or pay it.
His attorney wants Swanson to at least get the $139,000 that records show Swanson paid into the pension system as employee contributions before retiring from Countryside in 2009. Records show Swanson has already collected at least three times that in retirement checks over the years, so the city argues Swanson deserves nothing and — in fact — should have to pay the pension fund back for the retirement checks it sent Swanson after he was formally convicted in May. That could be about $40,000, according to a Tribune analysis.
Federal court records show Swanson is already on the hook to pay $87,457.71 in restitution to Countryside, on top of $55,140 to the IRS and $229,128 to scores of his nonprofit’s donors, including many area police departments. The restitution figure may have been lowered depending on the value of items Swanson has since forfeited to the government to begin paying off the debts — something not detailed in court records.
His sentencing requires that, once he’s released from prison, he has to put 20 percent of his disposable income toward paying off the rest of the restitution.
Copyright 2015 the Chicago Tribune