Pension Fund Stonewalling Cops Who Responded To 9/11, Adams Says

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, NY — Maureen Donohue spent about 400 hours at Ground Zero in the wake of 9/11 — but she said New York City's police pension board made her prove it.

The New York City Police Pension Fund claimed Donohue, a retired NYPD lieutenant who worked in Brooklyn's 88th Precinct, had worked just 36 hours at the scene. After undergoing treatment for the ovarian cancer she got from her work there, Donohue said, she had to dredge up her old police memo books to show she qualified for disability benefits. She said she also had to get affidavits from colleagues.

"After having been sick, to try and track these records down, go to precincts to try and get copies of things — it's almost insurmountable," Donohue said.

Donohue is just one of several 9/11-responding cops whose cases have gotten caught in "bureaucratic red tape" because the Police Pension Fund requires multiple forms of proof that they were at the horrific site, according to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

That can force sick cops to dig through documents just to prove their ailments are related to 9/11, Adams said at a Monday news conference.

To make matters worse, Adams said, many NYPD roll calls and other records have somehow gone missing. He called for a City Council investigation of the matter.

"We never came up against anything at the level of 9/11," said Adams, a former cop who also responded to the attacks. "The last thing that was on our minds was the paper that's associated with documenting where you were, where you were deployed and how long you were deployed there."

Cops who got sick or injured responding to the 9/11 tragedy can apply for disability benefits through the Police Pension Fund, which says it serves 36,000 active officers and 43,000 retirees.

The fund's Medical Board first determines whether the officer in fact has a 9/11-related condition, Adams said. Then it's up to the pension board to determine whether the person was actually on the scene, he said.

Adams called for the Police Pension Fund to require just a single form of proof of presence at Ground Zero. He said the onerous requirements could "further traumatiz(e)" the many first-responders who may not yet know they have afflictions from their response to the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people 17 years ago Tuesday.

"They lost the documentation, now they come into these offices and say, 'That's your problem, not our problem,'" Adams, a Democrat, said. "It's not making much sense to me."

The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. But the Law Department said it has returned all the 9/11 deployment records that the Police Department provided.

"All the records relating to the deployment of officers at Ground Zero that the NYPD was able to provide the Law Department in the aftermath of 9/11 have been returned," Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci said in a statement. "We also provided electronic copies to both the Police Pension Fund and the NYPD to facilitate officers’ requests for 'proof of presence' at Ground Zero."

(Lead image: Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, left, and retired NYPD Lt. Maureen Donohue speak at a Monday news conference at Brooklyn Borough Hall. Photo by Noah Manskar/Patch)