We've all been there: you get a nasty shoulder injury and retire on disability. But it heals, so you start moonlighting as a construction worker for some extra cash in addition to your disability pay. But then you have to start ripping lines to stay awake for the construction gig. C'est la vie! Such is the amazing odyssey of former NYPD officer James Seiferheld, who will collect annual $52,365 disability pension despite being deemed healthy enough to work. After authorities found Seiferheld on a construction site a month after retiring under disability in 2003, they ordered him back to the work. A positive cocaine test prevented him from re-joining the force, but the Police Pension Fund must pay him his pension per court order. The system works!
According to the Post, Seiferheld remains in this "weird limbo" because the city unilaterally revoked his pension in 2007 without the consent of the pension fund, so the State Supreme Court ordered it to be reinstated. "Pension laws that permit this must be changed," a city rep told the Post, "The result is absurd. Taxpayers cannot afford to pay a disability pension for a perfectly healthy officer who failed a drug test." Seiferheld's attorney feels the solution to the issue is to "return him to work. Any conduct we're talking about occurred when Jim was a private citizen. He was not a police officer." Maybe not, but he was the fastest damn construction worker this side of the Mississippi.
