Jerry Sandusky will reportedly still receive a state pension payment of more than $4,900 per month despite being found guilty last week on 45 molestation charges, according to Pennsylvania law.
Reuters reports that, by law, the former Penn State assistant football coach would only forfeit his pension after being sentenced for an Act 140 state crime. Crimes such as extortion and bribery by a public employee are covered by that act, but not violent crimes or sexual abuse.
Sandusky, 68, reportedly receives a pension of about $59,000 a year for the rest of his or his wife Dottie's life. He retired in 1999 after his last game as the Nittany Lions' defensive coordinator and began receiving retirement payments in June, the State Employees' Retirement System (SERS) said.
He received a lump sum payment of $148,271.71 and gets a lifetime pension of $4,908.17 per month, SERS said. It provided the data after a Reuters request under the state's Right-To-Know Law.
Sandusky keeping his pension "is really not as outrageous as it seems," Norman Stein, a professor of tax and benefits law at Philadelphia's Drexel University, told Reuters.
Stein said states typically limit pension forfeitures to acts such as fraud. Criminals who are not state employees also do not lose pensions when they are convicted.