A retired NYC worker who was shot in the face saw pension cut to $5 a month

Perry Kinard is 74-year-old retired subway worker from New York city. He has been retired since 1990 after he was shot in the chest and face by a psychotic drunk while on the job. Now NYCERS, New York City Employees Retirement System, claims they have overpaid Kincard consistently every month since his retirement. They plan to attempt to recoup their allegedly overpaid sum by reducing his monthly benefits from $1,414 to $5 until 2030. In total NYCERS claims exactly $163,444 in overpaid benefits.

The New York Post’s exclusive story details the recently diagnosed prostate cancer patient desperately pleading, “How am I supposed to live?”

The 19 year NY subway veteran had twice been viciously assaulted while working for the city. The first was in 1978 when an unknown assailant stabbed Kinard in the lung for no discernible reason while he was quietly mopping the floor in Elmhurst. Mr. Kinard vividly recounts the assault in 1990 that left him with two gunshot wounds including a bullet in his skull, which is still there to this day. He says a drunken man approached him asking, “Did you call the cops on me?” After that question it was only seconds before he was shot twice and left to die on a subway platform.

Mr. Kinard reiterates,“That’s all I remember, except pop, pop, pop! A bullet went through my chest. They say with the Lord’s help it didn’t hit the heart.”

Specifically at issue is a $150 worker’s compensation payment. NYCERS claims Kinard has received double payments of $150 a week for the last 22 years, effectively making his actual pension a paltry $762.

Kinard says he thought he was entitled to both payments.

Upon review of the official NYCERS website and portfolio it has been discovered that a large portion of the pension fund, which services over 30,000 retirees, is created by revenue from real estate dealings. It wasvoted in 2010 to increase the overall total investment of retiree money from 5% to 10%. Real estate holdingsexploded from $4 million to over $775 million in 2010. The retirement fund is currently carrying over $42 billion in liquid and physical assets. It is therefore quite perplexing and outrageous to see a bullet riddled retiree squeezed for an error caused by the city itself!

The only statement by NYCERS about this matter has been through their lawyer, Karen Mazza. She coldly and unequivocally says “NYCERS is bound by law to recoupt any overpayment.” As a lawyer employed by the city’s system she too is entitled to an eventual pension. My research also reveals Mazza was at one time involved in a perjury investigation while working for NYCERS.

Perry Kinard is not alone in this fight, however, as he has solicited the help of the former directer of NYCERS, Mr. John Murphy. It has been detailed how Murphy was able to help another NYC retiree with similar difficulty; a retired police officer with 28 years had their pension slashed by 75% but was later reinstated with Murphy’s intervention. Let the record be noted that in 2005 Mr. Murphy was forced to resign his post at NYCERS because he was found to have promoted his misstress, Niki Browne, to a near $100,000 salaried supervisory position. He has since been publishing “NYCERS Info.“

Kinard is the father of 4, and also a grandfather and great-grandfather. He is now living in South Carolina, unsure of how he will afford to live and afraid for the future.