NYC Teacher pension fund looted

Police have made one arrest in an identity-theft scam that targeted members of the New York City Teacers' Retirement Sytem.

The New York Post reports that it was an inside job.

Law-enforcement officials yesterday said they were still investigating what they believe was a multiperson identity-theft ring that accessed pensioners' bank account and Social Security numbers, their dates of birth and security pass codes.

Roughly $42,000 was stolen using the financial information of at least seven pensioners, and checks totaling more than $359,000 made out to 19 members or their beneficiaries were discovered in possession of the retirement-system insider, according to court papers.

The NYCTRS manages more than $30 billion in pension assets for more than 150,000 employees and retirees of the city Department of Education and the City University of New York.

"I still can't fathom what happened," said Diana Shaneberger, 37, who was scammed out of $6,000 last summer. "I'm really disenchanted with the whole system. They're incompetent."

Although as many as 5,800 accounts were said to have been accessed, it was not clear whether data on all of them, or only some, was actually stolen.

Jerome Boyd, a retirement system clerical employee, was arrested in connection with the scam.