The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Retirement Board voted in October 2012, that Finneran was not entitled to a government pension of about $32,900 a year due to his conviction of obstruction of justice in 2007. Finneran appealed the Retirement Board decision to the Boston Municipal Court where a judge reversed the Board's decision, concluding that Finneran's conviction did not bear "a direct factual link to his position as a House Member and/or Speaker[.]" On April 5, 2017, the Supreme Judicial Court reversed that decision and reinstated the decision of the Retirement Board, holding that "imply put, it is only because