The eight months are worth an extra $38,660 a year to Traffic Tribunal Judge Marjorie R. Yashar.

01:00 AM EST on Sunday, March 26, 2006

BY SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- When Traffic Tribunal Judge Marjorie R. Yashar retired in September, the court officials calculating her pension decided to credit Yashar for eight months she spent on unpaid leave.

Those extra months made a big difference.

Had Yashar retired when she first went on leave in February of 2005, her pension would have been $81,650 a year.

But instead, when the judge retired in September after a turbulent year on and off the bench, her pension was $120,310.

Why Yashar -- who was publicly censured by the state Supreme Court -- was given credit for months that she did not work is not clear.

State Court Administrator J. Joseph Baxter Jr., who signed off on the pension, said the court's human relations department simply calculates the time between a judge's start date and retirement date.

Baxter said it's up to each court's chief judge -- in this case Traffic Tribunal Chief Judge Albert E. DeRobbio -- to vouch for the work judges perform in between those dates.

DeRobbio said he had nothing to do with the pension and is not sure who granted Yashar credit for those eight months.

What is clear is that those months are worth an extra $38,660 to Yashar every year for the rest of her life.

During her time on leave, Yashar hit her 20-year anniversary of working for the Traffic Tribunal. Hitting the 20-year mark moved her from a 75-perent-of-salary pension, to one worth 100 percent.

Yashar also turned 65 during that time, enabling her to start collecting a pension immediately upon retirement.

In addition, Yashar's salary itself went up significantly in those eight months, from $108,867 a year to $120,310.

In the months that she was off the bench, the court system gave all of its employees a 4-percent retroactive raise for the previous year and a 4-percent pay raise for the current year, according to court spokesman Craig N. Berke. Yashar's longevity pay -- a bonus given to state workers based on length of service -- was also increased because of the 20-year anniversary, Berke said.

Yashar's departure came after a few rough months.

On Jan. 31, 2005, she was charged with domestic simple assault for allegedly stomping on the foot of her husband, Providence Dr. James Yashar. On Feb. 7, her lawyer wrote to DeRobbio, saying that Yashar's psychiatrist had recommended that she take a medical leave of absence. DeRobbio granted Yashar "leave without pay status," retroactive to Feb. 1. The charge was dropped last March.

In June, Yashar began coming to work again, saying she was ready to resume her judicial duties, but DeRobbio refused to give her any cases or put her back on the payroll, saying he wanted more information about her "psychiatric condition."

She also made the news in June, when the state police accused her of bumping a car in the court parking lot with her 2003 Mercedes Benz and leaving without notifying the car's owner, Magistrate Dominic A. DiSandro III.

DeRobbio also filed an ethics complaint against Yashar, alleging that she violated judicial ethics rules. She eventually admitted to having "failed to adhere to the properly given directives of Chief Judge DeRobbio regarding attendance and citation management." She also admitted to having had a conversation about a case without the prosecution present, and that her off-duty conduct at the Providence police station, following her arrest on the domestic-assault charge, had "demeaned the judicial office."

On Oct. 5, the state Supreme Court, acting on a recommendation from the Commission on Judicial Tenure and Discipline, censured Yashar "for the misconduct in which she has engaged."

Yashar officially resigned on Sept. 27 from the job she had not been working since Feb. 1, 2005, freeing DeRobbio to appoint somebody else to fill her spot.

Before she resigned, Yashar went to Superior Court seeking to force DeRobbio to take her back. Judge Joseph F. Rodgers Jr. denied the request.

Lawyers for DeRobbio and Yashar then negotiated a retirement.

Yashar waived her right to any back pay for the time she was on leave. She also agreed not to start collecting a pension until the end of the year, DeRobbio's lawyer J. Renn Olenn told The Journal in October.

Olenn said on Friday that no other agreements were made regarding Yashar's pensions.

"Judge DeRobbio made no determination or promise about what her pension credit would be, or years of service. His entire focus was to open the position to somebody who would actively serve," Olenn said.

The Journal has filed a public records request with the judiciary seeking all paperwork related to Yashar's pension. The request is pending.

DeRobbio said in an interview Friday that he was not concerned at the time about Yashar's pension. He just wanted to get her off his payroll.

"My position was I didn't care personally about retirement. I didn't care about what she received," DeRobbio said. "My position is: as soon as she goes, that's fine. But I want to make sure she is off my payroll."

Judges must be on active duty to be eligible for retirement, DeRobbio said. He allowed Yashar to return to active status for one day -- Sept. 26 -- to facilitate her departure.

"If I had the authority to fire, it would have been a different story," he said.

Asked further about the pension, he said: "That was not my ultimate decision."

Whose decision was it then?

"I have absolutely no idea. I don't make that decision," DeRobbio said.

Baxter, the court administrator, said that his staff simply verifies a judge's start date and retirement date.

"In between [those dates] if there are any issues relative to the attendance of an individual judge, that is the responsibility of the chief of that particular court," Baxter said.

Baxter said that since judges like Yashar -- those hired before July 2, 1997 -- don't contribute to their pensions, there is no deduction for any time on leave without pay.

The rules are very different for most state employees.

When state workers go out on unpaid leave, they also stop accumulating time toward their pension, according to Frank J. Karpinski, executive director of the state retirement system. When employees return to paid status, then the clock starts up again on their pension credits.

State employees can purchase credit for the time they were on unpaid leave, Karpinski said, but only after they have been back on the payroll for a full year.

In Yashar's case, she never stopped accumulating credit for her pension when she was out on unpaid leave.

Reached in Florida where she is now living, Yashar said judicial pensions have always been different from those for the rest of state workers.

"What would you buy back if you weren't putting money in?" she said.

Asked if her pension was ever brought up in negotiations with DeRobbio, Yashar said: "I can't put my finger on things that happened so long again, right now. I'm in Florida. My mind isn't on what happened there and then. So I really can't answer that for you now as much as I'd like to."

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Stephen D. Alves, D-West Warwick, who questioned Yashar's pension at a hearing earlier this month, has a problem with Yashar getting credit for the unpaid leave.

He said that because of her prolonged absence, he doesn't believe that she has the 20 years necessary to receive a full pension.

State law says that any judge "who has served for 20 years and have reached the age of 65 . . . may retire from active service and, thereafter, the judge shall receive annually during his or her life a sum equal to the annual salary he or she was receiving at the time of his or her retirement."

Alves said that nowhere in his reading of that section does he see the authority of anyone in the courts to grant Yashar a full pension.

"You have to have 20 years of service in order to receive a 100-percent pension," Alves said. "If you go by that ruling, you could work one day a year for 20 years and end up with a 100-percent pension."

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