Frank E. Corrente, standing left, listens as his lawyer, former House Speaker John B. Harwood, addresses the Providence Retirement Board, which is considering whether to reduce or revoke Corrente’s suspended pension. The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE — A consultant to the city Retirement Board has recommended that Frank E. Corrente, the one-time top lieutenant to former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., be allowed to have part of his disputed pension.

Cianci and Corrente were criminally convicted as a result of the Operation Plunder Dome investigation of graft at City Hall. A city ordinance requires honorable service as a prerequisite for a pension and mandates that a dishonorable employee’s pension be reduced or revoked upon conviction of a job-related crime.

Corrente, who worked two separate stints in city government, had his $70,576-a-year pension suspended in 2002 after he was convicted of six counts: racketeering, three counts of conspiracy and two counts of attempted extortion. The consultant, law Prof. Larry J. Ritchie, recommended that Corrente be given a pension based on his first term of employment, which Ritchie deemed blameless, but not his second, tainted term of employment in the Cianci administration.

“Greed is not good,” Ritchie said in a report to the board that was made public yesterday.

In a reference to Corrente’s misdeeds, he added, “Favoring a few contractors and citizens over the many honest taxpaying citizens of the city, for the political and financial gain of a few politicians and their cronies, is a heinous offense.”

The board has taken preliminary steps to reduce or revoke the pensions of both Corrente and Cianci, and yesterday board members held a hearing at City Hall to allow Corrente and his lawyer, former Rhode Island Speaker of the House John B. Harwood, an opportunity to make a personal appeal for Corrente’s pension.

Harwood said Corrente “did a great job for the City of Providence” in his initial 20 years’ service and has a pension entitlement for that period. But Harwood did not resist the idea that Corrente suffer some loss as a result of his second stint of 8½ years with Cianci.

“We’re coming before this body, humble, just asking for fairness …,” Harwood said. “We’re just here for fairness.” Corrente did not address the board.

The board put off a vote on the pension, awaiting calculations of benefits that might accrue to Corrente depending on the board’s decision.

A smiling and sharply attired Corrente greeted well-wishers with handshakes and embraces on a rare trip back to City Hall. The white-haired Corrente, 79, appeared tanned and fit although he is hard of hearing and had his prison sentence reduced for what was said to be ill health.

With both of his parents having lived well into their 90s, Corrente joshed in an aside that he is a beneficiary of good genes. By defying actuarial expectations for his lifespan, he stands to collect more than $200,000 in regular payments if he manages to cling to at least a partial pension. The annual pension that he had been receiving for his first stint was $22,231 with no provision for cost-of-living increases.

Although he was a management employee, Corrente also participated in the laborers’ union retirement plan and draws a pension of an undisclosed sum from that source. The city contributes to that plan on behalf of its covered employees but the employees do not have to contribute.

Corrente’s wife, Thelma, also draws a public pension for her longtime employment in the city School Department.

At some point, the city took the unannounced step of stripping Corrente of his retiree medical and dental insurance, but that benefit apparently is not a subject of board consideration.

In handling pension-revocation cases lately, the board has made no distinction between periods of time of honorable service and dishonorable service. For example, the board has moved to take away the pensions of Urbano Prignano Jr., a former police chief, and Kathleen M. Parsons, a former Parks Department office manager, although their admitted misconduct in each case occurred only in the final years of their city careers.

In Corrente’s case, however, there was a distinct break in service and a hiatus of about three years and eight months before he returned to city government to become Cianci’s director of administration in December 1990. With Plunder Dome looming, he retired the second time in July 1999.

In previous written and oral presentations, Corrente contended that Thelma Corrente, as an “innocent spouse,” should be entitled to any retirement benefits that he earned during their marriage even if they are denied to him directly.

Ritchie, in his report, said the honorable-service ordinance does not provide any spousal consideration and he rejected that contention.

Ritchie, in addition to his recommendation that Corrente get a pension based on his first term of employment, recommended a return to Corrente of any contributions to the city pension fund that Corrente was required to make during his second term of employment.

That sum, which would not bear interest, should be offset by any sum that Corrente was wrongly paid out based on his dishonorable second term of employment prior to the pension suspension, according to Ritchie. The second sum should bear interest, he said.

The board is in the process of petitioning the Superior Court to implement its pension decisions on Prignano and Parsons, and if Corrente does not accept the board’s decision on his pension, his case, too, will head to court for confirmation.

Cianci has made no move to claim the two city pensions to which he would have been entitled if he had not been convicted. And the city has not yet taken formal action to foreclose the entitlement.

gsmith@projo.com