Former Baltimore Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean, whose political career ended with her conviction in a corruption scandal, is continuing to draw pension payments while the city trustees seek legal advice on whether to revoke her benefits.
Mrs. McLean stepped down from office in July with an annual pension of $23,850 and medical benefits. Two months later, she tearfully pleaded guilty to stealing thousands in taxpayer dollars by having a fictitious employee on her payroll.
The seven-member pension board decided this week to hire a private lawyer to help determine whether she must relinquish her pension now that she has been sentenced for her theft scheme.
At an executive session Wednesday, the pension trustees also agreed to go over all the court documents from Mrs. McLean's sentencing before making a final decision, said Thomas P. Taneyhill, deputy administrator of the retirement system.
Two weeks ago, a judge sentenced Mrs. McLean to three years in prison but suspended the entire term and instead placed her on probation for five years.
Judge Donald J. Gilmore, who also ordered Mrs. McLean to perform 750 hours of community service, suggested that she should not lose her pension except for the three years she spent as comptroller.
However, Mr. Taneyhill pointed out that the pension board has no choice but to "act upon what is in the law."
The city code states that no elected official may receive benefits if convicted of a job-related offense punishable by at least six months in jail and a $500 fine.
"She was found guilty, and she was sentenced," said William E. )) Dix, one of the trustees. But what is at issue, he said, is whether a suspended sentence meets the standard set down by the city code.
City Solicitor Neal M. Janey, who advised the board to grant Mrs. McLean a pension while she still was awaiting trial, bowed out because he is already representing the city in a discrimination complaint against the comptroller's office.
Mrs. McLean's former assistant, Erwin A. Burtnick, is suing her and the city for his firing in July 1992. He is seeking more than $10 million in damages, charging that Mrs. McLean fired him because he is a white Jewish man.
At age 50 and with 17 years of service, Mrs. McLean is vested and able to collect a full pension under the city's guidelines.
She had spent six years as a District Court commissioner before being elected to the Baltimore City Council in 1983. Eight years later, she became the first black woman to rise to comptroller, the city's third-most-powerful position.
Mrs. McLean, whose pension is 45 percent of her annual $53,000 salary as comptroller, made clear that her main reason for retiring was to obtain medical benefits.
Despondent and under psychiatric care for much of the past year, Mrs. McLean had exhausted the hospitalization coverage under her city medical plan. When she retired in July, three months after she attempted suicide, she was able to continue her treatment for depression at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Towson.
At her sentencing, Mrs. McLean told the judge in a halting voice that she feared above all losing her medical benefits. Without the pension, she said tearfully, she would not be able to continue her therapy or pay for the medication that keeps her from slipping into despair.