Nashville judge Casey Moreland's pension? $4,500 a month
Casey Moreland will receive amore than $4,500 pension payment each month, despite his resignation from the judiciary in Nashville.
Moreland, 59, resigned amid an ongoing FBI probe last month and after he was charged with a trio of crimes.
Those charges don't curb the taxpayer-funded benefits he'll receive.
Moreland will pocket an estimated $4,588 pension each month beginning in May, according to Tara Stewart of Metro Human Resources. She said he is also eligible for medical coverage and a $10,000 life insurance policy.
But Moreland could lose his benefits. State law says a public official forfeits retirement benefits if convicted of "a felony arising out of that person's employment or official capacity, constituting malfeasance in office." Nashville's employee benefit board decides if Moreland can continue to get the benefits, with or without a conviction, according to Metro Law Director Jon Cooper.
► Read more: These 10 people are Nashville's employee benefit board.
As one of the city's 11 General Sessions judges, Moreland earned $170,000 annually overseeing mostly minor criminal cases. He'd been a judge since 1998.
But in March, after months of media reports about misconduct in his courtroom, the Nashville native resigned his post.
The FBI charged Moreland with three obstruction of justice and witness tampering counts, alleging that Moreland paid more than $6,000 to silence a woman making public allegations against him. He tendered his resignation as part of his successful bid to get out of jail while pending trial.
►Related: After Casey Moreland's arrest, city leaders call for court improvements
The investigation is ongoing, and includes in scope the financial relationship between Moreland's specialty, treatment-focused court programs and a nonprofit foundation set to fund the courts.
Court and other public records show Moreland repeatedly wielded his authority to help people he knew. In 2014, he was publicly reprimanded for helping his longtime friend and lawyer, Bryan Lewis, get a man out of jail early.
In June, he intervened in a traffic stop for a woman with whom he had a sexual relationship, helping her avoid arrest, according to the records and police accounts. And twice, once for his future son-in-law and once for another of his alleged paramours, records show Moreland allowed those people to avoid serving jail time.
►Related: Timeline: Investigation of judge Casey Moreland
Reach Stacey Barchenger at 615-726-8968 or sbarchenger@tennessean.com or on Twitter @sbarchenger.