Randy Smith’s resignation was part of plea deal after attack on podcaster Bobby Couvillion at a Madisonville restaurant

A suburban New Orleans sheriff who had held one of his community’s most prominent political offices for a decade has retired shortly after pleading guilty to battering a podcaster who often criticized him.

Randy Smith, 61, also agreed to serve more than a year of probation after admitting to a late May beating at a steakhouse where he had bought 18 alcoholic beverages on his tab on a Friday afternoon – which all but halted his four-decade policing career.

Smith had been sworn in as the elected sheriff of St Tammany parish, Louisiana, on 1 July 2016, succeeding a predecessor who eventually pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges and was separately convicted of serial child sexual molestation.

  • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    A pension is something you pay into it through your career with deductions from your paycheck. Idk why people treat it like free money or something that is earned through merit. It’s the money of the employee taken and invested

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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      2 days ago

      Not all pensions work like that. Government pensions especially. Some work like you accumulate time in service and once you hit the threshold (typically 20-30 years) then they’ll pay you for the rest of your life. Often comes with healthcare too. Not sure how it works for NOLA police though.

      What you’re describing sounds more like a retirement account.

      • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        I worked in the park service for a bit. Money was drawn from my paycheck automatically to fund the pension. You got the rest right though.

        As for Healthcare, you do get to keep that, but we still had to pay for it. Pretty good price though.

        The 401k was entirely separate

    • bthest@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Yeah it’s his pension. But we, the tax payer should take it away from him as punishment/compensation for his victims. I don’t know what we’re missing here.

      For police, a pension should just be a security deposit that you get back at retirement/career change if you’ve been good and not behaved like an animal.

      • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        Nah fuck that, put his ass in prison sure, but until we fix our broken ass country I’m not sentencing anyone to poverty in their old age. There are some people I really do hate, but I hate the existence of poverty more

        Now I’m down for making them carry insurance that pays their wrong doing. That in turn will eventually push them out of policing