The Stoneham Retirement Board voted to allow a former police detective convicted of a federal crime to keep his pension.
At stake was Robert Kennedy’s taxpayer-funded benefit of roughly $5,000 per month.
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The key question: Was his wire fraud conviction directly related to his duties as a public servant?
In January, Kennedy—whose career of more than 20 years with the Stoneham Police Department came to an abrupt end once the pattern of behavior was exposed in an NBC10 Boston investigation — received a sentence of two years of probation with 90 days of home confinement.
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About a year earlier, an NBC10 Boston investigation detailed how the detective sergeant had a pattern of not paying landlords the monthly rent stretching back two decades, including a property owned by an elderly couple in Woburn.
We reported how, in recent years, housing court records show Kennedy and his girlfriend racked up more than $50,000 in unpaid rent while being evicted from apartment complexes in Stoneham and Reading.
Investigations
During that three-year period, salary records revealed Kennedy had earned more than a half-million dollars as a police officer.
After seeing our investigation, a couple contacted us and said Kennedy and his girlfriend had not paid a dime since moving into their property in late 2022.
During a subsequent interview, Aarti and Peter Goldstein described how the police officer's security deposit and first month's rent checks both bounced. They also showed us how Kennedy had used a family member's Social Security number to obtain a clean credit report.
The Goldsteins would later provide that same testimony to a federal grand jury, according to the criminal indictment for wire fraud.
Even after being arrested by the FBI and indicted in federal court, Kennedy did not pay rent to the Goldsteins. We were there in June when the couple was finally able to evict him from the property.
When asked if the crime was related to Kennedy’s job as a police officer, Peter Goldstein recalled how he provided a business card when he viewed the apartment.
“I think he used it to his advantage,” Goldstein after his sentencing in January. “It’s not just his identity as an officer. It’s his experience. He used it against us to delay his eviction, to gain our trust, everything.”
However, the Stoneham Retirement Board determined that based on the law, members could not strip the disgraced cop’s pension because the crime took place in his personal life.
The Board voted unanimously to adopt the recommendation of Attorney Michael Sacco, who was the appointed hearing officer in the pension forfeiture case.
““While this decision should in no way be construed as excusing his reprehensible conduct, the standard is not the conduct itself, but whether there is a legal or factual link between his crimes and his position,” Sacco concluded.
Kennedy’s sentencing ordered about $14,000 in restitution to the Goldsteins for the lost rental income. On Wednesday morning, the couple told NBC10 Boston they still have yet to receive a dime.
Have a tip for the NBC10 Investigators? Email us at tips@nbcboston.com.
