Former Massachusetts House Speaker DiMasi Will Continue to Receive Pension

Former Massachusetts House speaker Salvatore DiMasi, who is awaiting federal charges related to bribery, including conspiracy to defraud the federal government, extortion, mail fraud and wire fraud, will continue to receive his $5,000 monthly pension. The ruling, handed down by Boston Municipal Judge Lawrence McCormick, explained that the state erred in taking away DiMasi's pension without a hearing. He even went so far as to call it "offensive."

I'm actually OK with this, because I'm down with the "innocent until proven guilty" mantra. I think its true purpose is to protect everyday citizens from abuses of police power by those in charge, rather than protecting those in charge from answering to their abuses of power, but so be it. I don't really buy McCormick's whole "You should have held a hearing" spiel, though, because you don't need a formal hearing to understand that people facing 185 years in prison for crimes like extortion should not really be collecting $60,000 a year in public monies for doing nothing. But for the sake of fairness let DiMasi collect the money for the time being. Under one condition.