Ex-judge, who helped husband hide money, fights for pension

Former Judge Patricia Coffey

CONCORD — Eleven years after resigning as a Rockingham County Superior Court judge, after helping her disbarred lawyer-husband hide money from the state, Patricia Coffey is suing for an annual $89,604 pension, more than $400,000 in back-pension pay and health insurance.

Coffey resigned in 2008 after the Supreme Court suspended her for three years without pay, for helping her husband John Coffey create a trust to hide assets, while he was being disbarred for the financial exploitation of an elderly Rye woman. Coffey was also investigated for 2006 allegations that she fell asleep while presiding over Superior Court cases, was ordered to seek a confidential medical examination and be subject to random monitoring of her courtroom.

Now represented by Portsmouth attorney Russell Hillard, Coffey on Friday filed a four-count federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire contending the Board of Trustees of the New Hampshire Judicial Retirement Plan voted in 2015 to deny her pension application.

Her lawsuit reports she’s now 64, lives in California and was a superior court judge for 16½ years. During that time, Coffey claims in her suit, she made mandatory pension contributions and under terms of the plan, is entitled to a pension of 71 percent of her final year’s salary.

Coffey’s suit states her final year’s salary was $126,203, so she’s entitled to an annual pension of $89,604. She’s asking for a jury trial, a finding that the board violated law by denying her pension and that her pension be paid, with back pay. She’s seeking compensation for lost health benefits for the past four years, enrollment in the judicial health plan and reimbursement for legal costs and attorney’s fees.

The lawsuit states Coffey was denied the pension because the board found she was not employed as a judge at the time of her retirement age, while Coffey disputes that interpretation of applicable law. Coffey claims in her suit that she was vested in the retirement plan because she had the 15 years of minimum service when she reached age 60.

The suit was just filed Friday and the Board of Trustees for the New Hampshire Judicial Retirement Plan has 30 days to respond.

Six months after she resigned as a Superior Court judge, Coffey was again the subject of judicial reprimand. Then the N.H. Supreme Court’s Judicial Conduct Committee found she violated judicial code of conduct by drawing a salary from a private company, while also collecting full judicial pay, while suspended and under investigation for previous impropriety.

In a statement, the JCC announced Coffey violated three canons of the judicial code of conduct by collecting full-time pay for document retrieval services for a New York City firm at the same time she collected her judge’s pay. Coffey signed a document accepting the JCC’s findings and agreed she would be the subject of censure, a public reprimand, for the violations.

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Ex-judge, who helped husband hide money, fights for pension