Timothy Carroll retired at age 33. He claimed he was “totally
and permanently” disabled by the trauma of seeing dead bodies while
working as a sheriff’s officer in Morris County, New Jersey.

“I suffer from crime scene flashbacks and hallucinations due to
all the years I served as a crime scene detective,” stated Carroll
in his disability application.

The real shock is Carroll then started a business that cleans up
gory crime scenes, a New Jersey Watchdog investigation found. Yet
the state continues to pay him a disability pension for life, a sum
that could total $1 million or more.

Carroll’s company, Tragic Solutions LLC of Linden,
N.J., specializes in removing human residue from “bloody
and/or messy” scenes, including “murder, suicide, accidental,
natural and decomposing deaths,” according to its website. He
formed the business with Thomas Rohling, another former Morris
sheriff’s officer who draws a state disability pension.

“I really don’t want to comment on this,” Carroll told NBC 4 New
York, New Jersey Watchdog’s partner on the investigation.

“This says there is a problem with the whole pension system, the
way the whole system is set up,” said John Sierchio, a trustee of
the state Police and Firemen’s Retirement System (PFRS).

PFRS paid out $175 million to 5,067 disabled retirees in
2011—figures expected to rise when 2012 data are released.

Disability applications received by the PFRS have doubled in the
past year—and 95 percent of those claims are questionable,
according to Sierchio.

The supposedly career-ending incidents have included a fireman
who fell out of bed while sleeping, an officer who fell off his
chair while sitting down, cops who slipped on wet floors or icy
sidewalks, and a patrolman who suffered emotional trauma because
his lieutenant yelled at him during roll call.

“It’s people who don’t want to work anymore,” said Sierchio, a
Bloomfield police sergeant who has served on the PFRS board since
2002. “The last two officers shot in New Jersey are back to work,
but the guy who trips over a curb is sitting on a beach getting
two-thirds (of salary) tax-free.”

In New Jersey, it’s relatively easy to fake or exaggerate an
injury to get a disability pension. The PFRS has no staff to
investigate fraud. Nor do any of the state’s five other retirement
funds for public employees.

“No one is watching,” said Sierchio.

The Tragic Solutions case illustrates how weak laws, red tape,
and lack of enforcement contribute to the woes of a state pension
system that faces a shortfall of nearly $42 billion. New Jersey
Watchdog obtained the records through Open Public Records Act
requests.

In 1999, Carroll told pension officials he was unable to work
because of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression caused by
what he witnessed while responding to a car accident and three
suicides.

“I started having crime scene flashbacks and hallucinations in
1997,” wrote Carroll. “In September of 1998, I suffered a
hallucination while working at the courthouse. I was removed from
work and placed in a mental hospital.”
Carroll began receiving disability checks after the PFRS board
approved his retirement effective May 1999. Five years later—in
April 2004—Carroll and Rohling formed Tragic Solutions, according
to state business records. For Carroll, the timing would prove
crucial.