The investigation into the secret payment of a pension to a firefighter connected to Olszewski is being completed

Baltimore County Inspector General Kelly Madigan has concluded that the $83,675 payment to Philip Tirabassi by County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. in settlement of his lawsuit against the county was appropriate.

The most remarkable about her conclusion is that the information included in her report refutes Olszewski’s own reason for the settlement, an important finding that the IG failed to mention.

The party line Madigan laid out in her report is that the county feared Tirabassi would sue to enforce an “unauthorized” settlement offer sent to Tirabassi’s attorney by a former assistant county attorney identified as Michael Raimondi.

However, language the IG quoted from the email makes clear that the district was not threatened by the draft agreement, which reflects a position the district initially took and then changed without explanation, according to internal documents.

As a result, we do not have a satisfactory answer as to why $83,675 was paid to Tirabassi to settle a claim that the District found to be without merit.

Two things we do know are that Tirabassi, who had both business and personal ties to Olszewski, lobbied administration officials long and hard on behalf of his claim, and that the payment to him was hidden from the county board and the public in violation of county law.

Claim

Tirabasi’s claim was that after he resigned from the Baltimore City Fire Department to become a Baltimore County firefighter in 1989, the county failed to notify him of a 1990 state law that would have allowed him to carry over just over two years of pensionable “service “. credit,” earned in the city, to the Baltimore County Retirement Plan.

Under state law, Tirabasi had until June 30, 1991, to file a claim with the county for transfer of service credit.

• Previous Brew Coating – The case of Tirabasi

Tirabasi missed the deadline and didn’t begin actively suing until mid-2018, 27 years too late. His efforts intensified after Olszewski took office in December 2018.

In a letter dated April 22, 2019, the county’s former director of budget and finance, Keith Dorsey, dismissed Tirabassi’s lawsuit as untimely. Dorsey resigned shortly thereafter. He was replaced by Ed Blades, who reviewed Dorsey’s decision at the request of Olszewski.

In a letter dated September 10, 2019, Blades also denied Tirabasi’s request to transfer credit for the services.

Settlement

Blades’ decision was hardly the end of the back-and-forth described in Madigan’s 27-page report.

On January 29, 2020, Raimondi sent Tirabassi’s lawyer a draft of a possible settlement agreement.

In July of this year (2024), Olszewskiy told journalists from sun that Raimondi sent the agreement without his or District Attorney James Benjamin’s permission or knowledge.

Olszewski also said Tirabassi threatened to sue after the county tried to back out of the settlement.

As a result, the district decided to settle to protect the district from that litigation after district leadership “became aware of this unauthorized arrangement and expressed concern,” the district’s executive director said.

Madigan said that until April 2020, internal documents reflected that the district had no intention of settling the threatened lawsuit. Then came this:

“By April 2020, the district’s position had changed such that the district became eligible for settlement with Tirabasi. The internal emails reviewed did not provide a clear explanation for this change. However, surveys conducted by the Office revealed that one of the reasons was the onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on county government.” (Report of the IG, p. 9.)

Madigan also reported:

“In numerous emails reviewed by the Office during this time period (April-May 2020), the administration and the (Legal Office) continued to state that the reason for the Tirabasi deal would have been ‘a mistake by (Raimondi)’ because otherwise, the district believed, which has a strong position that Tirabassi received notice of the possibility of moving the city time and simply did not do so within the required period of time.” (IG report, p. 10.)

The IG cites an email from Raimondi, who provided the draft settlement agreement to Tirabassi’s attorney, which states: “I have not yet had the opportunity to review this agreement with my superiors, so it is subject to their agreement as to wording, sufficiency of form and substance.”

This proviso was made against the background of settled Maryland law, according to which “no representation, declaration, promise, or act of ratification by the officers of a (municipal) corporation shall prevent it from asserting the invalidity of a contract unless such officers had authority to enter into such contract on behalf of corporation”.

So, even if Raimondi had misled Tirabasi’s attorney about his authority, that would not have stopped the county from refusing to honor the agreement.

In fact, Raimondi made it clear that he was didn’t do have the authority to bind the county to the agreement. This was subject to approval by his “superiors”, and they did not approve it. End of story.

Occasion

The initial position of the district was correct:

The threat to sue to enforce the draft settlement agreement was empty. Presumably the IG knows the law and should have pointed it out because it raises this obvious question:

If neither Tirabassi’s original claim nor his threat to sue to enforce the draft settlement had merit, what was the explanation for the county’s April 2020 “change” in its position on reaching a financial settlement with him?

The administration had to give some explanation about the settlement. Publicly linking it to “the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic,” as some unnamed officials apparently suggested to Madigan, would sound pretty silly.

In my opinion, writing off Raimondi’s “mistake” was an excuse.

Without compelling explanation, compensation of $83,675 to a person with personal and business ties to the county executive as defined The Brewmay not be smoke. But this is very suspicious – and puts Tirabassi’s financial calculations in a completely different light.

Unsurprisingly, the settlement was hidden under the fake name of “Philip Dogg,” an act Madigan bent over backwards to ensure it wasn’t “malicious.”

An eloquent email

On June 20, 2020, former county administrative officer Stacey Rogers described Tirabasi’s settlement in an email to Olszewski’s former chief of staff, Pat Murray, as “simply wrong on MANY levels.”

The County did have an extremely strong defense to Tirabasi’s claim for transfer of service credit, but Raimondi’s alleged “mistake” was also not a basis for settlement.

I don’t understand why the Madigan report makes no mention of trying to question Rogers about what she meant by that.

I have read countless reports from police and other investigators on a wide variety of issues. Key witnesses and persons who may have important information are interviewed and, if they cannot be interviewed, the reasons are noted in the minutes.

Sometimes people’s refusal to do interviews speaks volumes, and that will certainly apply to Rogers in this case if she doesn’t cooperate.

So we have a case involving an individual related to Olszewski in which Olszewski took a personal interest and ended up paying that person $83,675 that has no clear rationale and was hidden from the county board and the public.

It’s not proof of wrongdoing, but I’d hardly call it an excuse. Especially when it was revealed that the IG may not have interviewed people who could shed light on exactly how and by whom the decision to settle with the county fire department was made.

• David A. Plimer retired as Anne Arundel County District Attorney after 31 years in the county law office. To contact him: [email protected] and Twitter @dplymyer.