Treasurer wants stronger pension forfeiture law for officials convicted of felonies

Public officials take an oath to serve and protect the public's trust, but they don't always uphold that standard:

• Former Wake County Register of Deeds Laura Riddick and some of her staffers were indicted this month on charges they embezzled more than $1 million.
• Former Rockingham County District Attorney Craig Blitzer pleaded guilty in July to failure to discharge the duties of his office in a scheme to get his wife a job. Wallace Bradsher, the former district attorney for Person and Caswell counties, also is charged in the case.
• Former state Sen. Fletcher Hartsell is serving a federal prison sentence for using campaign funds for personal expenses.

North Carolina has a law that's been in effect for about a decade that restricts pensions for public officials convicted of a felony related to the job, but State Treasurer Dale Folwell said it needs more teeth.

Folwell was a state lawmaker who helped pass the pension forfeiture law after former House Speaker Jim Black and ex-Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps went to prison for taking illegal campaign cash. Neither Black nor Phipps lost their state pensions because there were no rules on the books at the time of their crimes.

"It outrages the citizens of this state," Folwell said Friday of public corruption.

The law doesn't cover crimes unrelated to someone's public position. It also doesn't affect years of service unrelated to a crime, individual pension contributions or earned interest.

Folwell wants current lawmakers to clarify the law to put prosecutors and judges on the same page with his office.

"We're just making sure that, A, we're applying the law because we are keepers of the public purse in the Treasurer's Office, and B, that the prosecutors, the district attorneys and the judges across the state understand that this is very important," he said.

Folwell said the clarification would require anybody who doesn't want to apply the pension forfeiture law in a specific case to "overtly do something to keep the person's pension intact."

He also wants plea deals to be subject to pension forfeitures.

Folwell didn't provide specific examples of cases that may be bypassing the pension forfeiture law, but he said elected officials who misuse their public office and still collect a pension unfairly cost all the other members of the state pension plan.

"It's not emotional, it's not political, it's mathematical," he said.