Former Illinois Rep. Connie Howard has forfeited her right to any more pension checks because she committed a crime linked to her official duties, according to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
The South Side Democrat has collected nearly $195,000 from her state pension, most of which she pocketed after pleading guilty two years ago in a scam that converted funds raised for student scholarships into cash for her own political and personal use. She continued to collect until her sentencing Dec. 8 to three months in prison for mail fraud.
“Howard’s conviction related to, arose out of, and was connected to her service as a state representative,” Madigan wrote to the chief of the state legislative pension system. “The facts underlying the offense demonstrate that Howard used her position as a state representative to obtain financial benefits for herself and her campaign committee.”
Madigan’s recommendation to terminate Howard’s future pension checks is expected to be followed by the General Assembly Retirement System, said Senate Majority Leader James Clayborne, a Belleville Democrat who chairs the panel.
Howard’s $5,039 monthly pension check for December already was suspended. The full board is scheduled to vote next month on whether to end her taxpayer-supported retirement income permanently.
The ex-lawmaker’s pension saga already has sparked changes. In April, the legislative pension board approved a new policy that ended state officials’ long-standing practice of waiting until sentencing to stop paying pension money to crooked state officials — a lucrative quirk highlighted by the Tribune. But the change did not affect Howard’s checks.
Howard chaired the House Computer Technology Committee and held golf outings to raise money for scholarships for needy students studying computer sciences.
She abruptly quit in July 2012 while under federal investigation and started collecting her pension. More than two-thirds of the $194,870 in pension money Howard collected was sent after her guilty plea in July 2013.
Howard waived indictment and pleaded guilty to one felony count for a crime committed in the summer of 2007. Her plea agreement also stated that Howard had solicited and obtained about $76,700 from 2003 to 2007 to provide financial aid to students but gave no more than five scholarships totaling $12,500.
Accused of diverting money from a private scholarship fund for her own personal and political use, she also was ordered by a federal judge to pay restitution of more than $28,000. Madigan noted that state election records show Howard had collected seven campaign contributions totaling $2,550 from the scholarship fund.
As prosecutors worked through a series of grant fraud cases, Howard’s sentencing date in federal court kept getting delayed and her state pension checks kept piling up.
During her 17-year career, Howard made nearly $130,000 in personal contributions to the pension system from her paychecks, and her attorney has said she may try to seek a refund. Efforts to reach Howard and the attorney on Monday were unsuccessful.
Asking for a refund would challenge a second pension board change adopted in April. Tim Blair, the legislative pension system’s executive director, said that former lawmakers who committed crimes now cannot receive a refund if they have already collected more money overall in monthly pension checks.
Twitter @RayLong
![Today’s Highlight in History: On April 24, 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of a lobbying group for the wood products industry, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three people and injured 29 others.) On this date: In 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South. In 1915, in what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2023/06/12/5LTPEE42BQ2O25ECG7SKBN4RV4.jpg?w=535 "Today’s Highlight in History: On April 24, 1995, the final bomb linked to the Unabomber exploded inside the Sacramento, California, offices of a lobbying group for the wood products industry, killing chief lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray. (Theodore Kaczynski was later sentenced to four lifetimes in prison for a series of bombings that killed three people and injured 29 others.) On this date: In 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South. In 1915, in what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political […]")