Articles Posted on this Page.

August 31, 2001: Mashburn policy left out Marrero

August 30, 2001:Tampa Begins Effort to Change Pension Benefits

August 30, 2001: A tragic loss, lost in the cause

August 29, 2001: Partner denied Marrero pension

August 28, 2001: Relatives, companion to argue for pension

August 18, 2001:More roommates than soul mates

The St Petersburg Times

Mashburn policy left out Marrero
St. Petersburg, Fla.; Aug 31, 2001

AMY HERDY;

As the domestic partner of Lois Marrero, Tampa police Officer Mickie Mashburn could have named Marrero as the beneficiary of her city life insurance policy after the two women were joined in a commitment ceremony in 1991.

But she did not.

City records show that in 1985, Mashburn named someone else, the father of an old college friend, as the beneficiary of her $50,000 life insurance policy and has never changed it.

On Thursday, Mashburn's lawyer, Danny Castillo, dismissed that as an oversight on the part of his client.

"In this particular case, Mickie just probably never thought about it," he said.

Marrero's mother, who has opposed Mashburn's efforts to be awarded Marrero's city pension, said the life insurance document shows the lack of depth of the two women's relationship.

"That proves their relationship was not as strong as she is saying," Maria Marrero said of Mashburn. "Why does she want to be treated like a spouse if she did not treat Lois like a spouse?"

Lois Marrero, a veteran Tampa police officer, was killed by a bank robber July 6. She did not leave a will, although she named her mother as the beneficiary of her city life insurance, which was worth $125,000 because of the nature of her death.

Marrero did name Mashburn to receive a salary replacement benefit through the police union. Castillo said he did not know whether Mashburn had named Marrero to receive the same benefit.

He said the development will not hinder his effort to show that the two women were spouses and that Mashburn is entitled to Marrero's pension death benefits. If granted to Mashburn, the benefits would pay her $28,000 a year for the rest of her life.

If there is no surviving spouse, any contributions made to the pension would go to the estate, in this case, Lois Marrero's parents. Marrero's pension contributions are valued at $50,000.

Records show that Mashburn's life insurance beneficiary is a Tennessee man named Kenneth Nave. Nave's wife, Jeanette, told the Times on Thursday that she did not know that Mashburn had named her 75-year-old husband as her beneficiary. If she had, Mrs. Nave said, it was probably because Mashburn once was close friends with the Naves' daughter.

"They were friends for several years," Mrs. Nave, 72, said. She said both of Mashburn's parents are dead, and "she doesn't have much family. I was like a mother to her."

During an interview with the Times Thursday, Castillo indicated that the case is causing him some discomfort. He said he is "a conservative Catholic with six children" and does not necessarily agree with his client's case being linked to the gay rights movement.

"It's the individual I represent, not the cause. I'm not representing the gay cause," Castillo said. "I represent drug traffickers. It doesn't mean I like drug traffickers."

Asked whether he was thinking of leaving the case, he responded that that was not a decision for him to make.

"The problem I have is I'm representing a client," he said. "This is the business I chose. As I advocate for my client, my personal beliefs matter not. I personally may have a different view, but I have a legal obligation and ethical obligation to my client."

- Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Amy Herdy can be reached at (813) 226-3386 or herdy@sptimes.com.

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St. Petersburg Times & Gay Financial Network

Tampa Begins Effort to Change Pension Benefits
August 30, 2001
Christopher Goffard

Gay Financial Network http://www.gfn.com/news/story.phtml?sid=10137

TAMPA, Fla. -- The effort to change the city of Tampa's pension package to encompass protection for same-sex partners, while appearing to enjoy support among key players in the wake of Tampa police Officer Lois Marrero's murder, promises to be a protracted process.

That was apparent Wednesday at a meeting of a city-hosted committee formed to discuss changing the wording on city contracts to prevent discrimination against same-sex domestic partners.

Currently, the city's pension plan designates an employee's "widow or widower" as eligible to receive death benefits. The spouse of a Tampa officer killed on duty is entitled to half the officer's salary every year for life.

When Marrero was shot to death by a fleeing bank robber last month, she left no will. Tuesday, the police and firefighter pension board denied Marrero's 10-year companion, Mickie Mashburn, the slain officer's benefits.

State law forbids gay and lesbian couples from marrying, but advocates of changing the local pension package say employees should be able to name the beneficiary of their choice.

Council member Linda Saul-Sena, who led Wednesday's meeting, said the process would require the approval of the police and firefighter unions, as well as an actuarial study to determine how much the changes would cost. One snag: The pension board does not have an actuary on staff and needs to find one.

The changes would also have to be approved by the City Council, sponsored by the local legislative delegation, and passed by the state Legislature.

"We've got quite a few things to do," said Sarah Lang, the city's director of administration.

Sarah Lang, the city's director of administration, said the matter likely would not reach the floor of the Legislature until the 2003 session.

Kevin Durkin, president-elect of the West Central Police Benevolent Association, who attended Wednesday's meeting, said he supported the idea of allowing officers to name their beneficiaries.

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The St Petersburg Times

A tragic loss, lost in the cause
St. Petersburg, Fla.; Aug 30, 2001;

MARY JO MELONE;

Tampa police officer Mickie Mashburn has decided to give herself a promotion. She has made herself A Cause.

When the cop she had lived with for 10 years, Lois Marrero, was killed in the line of duty early in July, Mashburn pushed aside the gay rights groups that wanted to side with her. Even her lawyer said he was refusing their calls.

Mashburn struck a noble pose. Dressed in black, she was a character out of a hip cop show with the gay twist Steve Bochco would appreciate.

I bought it. Many people bought it.

Then the fault lines appeared in Mashburn's picture.

Marrero had never signed over her pension benefits to Mashburn.

The romance may have been on the rocks.

Marrero loved somebody else.

Marrero and Mashburn had debts. Mashburn might even be in danger of losing her job because she had been injured in a bike accident.

Mashburn did not like any of this being disclosed. She stopped talking to the Times reporter, Amy Herdy, who first reported it - as if her snub could solve Mashburn's sudden crisis.

It was time to call in the script doctors. Equality Florida, the gay rights group, showed up instead to tell the Tampa Police and Fire Pension Board on Tuesday that it would violate Florida's civil rights laws to deny Mashburn a pension that normally would go to a cop's widow.

The board followed the law. The women were not married. The money went into Marrero's estate.

Mashburn's lawyers promised a fight. They will fight the pension board, then in probate court.

This is when matters will get uncomfortable for Mickie Mashburn. Marrero died without a will to explain how her estate was to be divided. The law gives the money automatically then to her parents. Not Mashburn.

So she will have the unpleasant job of fighting a family that lost its daughter.

Not a task that will score her a lot of points.

In probate court, she will lose the veneer of A Cause. She will look only like somebody with her hand out.

Mashburn needs the gay rights groups as protective cover so she can keep looking like A Cause. Her story otherwise is like most people's stories, complicated and low on heroics.

When the probate fight is over it will move to civil court, and the appellate courts, and maybe even the Legislature, where the conservatives see danger in every corner, and certainly under the marriage bed.

Almost as soon as he entered the Legislature 4 1/2 years ago, Tampa Bay's own, Johnny Byrd, R-Plant City, got a law passed banning gay marriage.

Byrd has been on the fast track ever since.

Next year he will be speaker of the state House, where the idea of Mickie Mashburn as A Cause will have the majority rolling in the aisles.

Many issues have them rolling in the aisles in the Legislature, or looking away. The fairness of the death penalty, since some people's lives are on the line, for one. Testing schoolchildren rather than educating them, for one.

If we wanted to fix things, we could start here.

I would.

I would not start by trying to change the law against gay marriage. It isn't going to happen in a very long time, and if Mickie Mashburn wanted to retain any credibility, she and her backers would turn down the volume. They would think twice about how unrelenting a fight they intend to wage, that if it gets loud and long enough, the cop who died at the hands of a bank robber will be utterly forgotten.

"Lois would want this," Mashburn said of her getting Marrero's pension.

I did not know Lois Marrero, but if she was like the rest of us, she would not have wanted to be a stick figure in A Cause. She would have wanted, simply, to be remembered.

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Partner denied Marrero pension

August 29, 2001
Before a packed boardroom and a crush of media, a city pension board met to decide who should get the benefits of slain Tampa police Officer Lois Marrero.

Lawyer Danny Castillo urged the board to consider the 10-year relationship between Marrero and his client, Mickie Mashburn, a marriage.

"It is up to this board to determine whether Officer Mashburn was a spouse," Castillo said.

Karen Doering, a civil rights attorney also retained by Mashburn, told the board its policy of allowing only legal spouses to receive pension death benefits was illegal.

"That is on its face a clear violation of the Florida Civil Rights Act," Doering said.

Those arguments didn't convince the eight-member firefighter and police pension board. Without discussion, Mashburn's application was unanimously rejected. Instead, the board voted to award Marrero's $50,000 pension contributions to her estate, in this case, her parents.

Marrero, killed by a fleeing bank robber July 6, was paid $55,000 a year. She did not leave a will.

The board's decision Tuesday did not come as a surprise.

The board attorney and its chairman had both made it clear they would follow the law that provides death benefits to surviving spouses only.

Afterward, Castillo said he was not discouraged. He said he will ask the board to reconsider its vote with a full evidentiary hearing that has yet to be scheduled.

"I don't put any merit in the decision today as being the last word on this," he said, promising a lengthy legal battle.

Mashburn said she felt good about her efforts.

"This will be a change for the city of Tampa and a change for the nation," she said.

Mashburn declined to answer questions about the Marrero family's opposition to her petition.

The family says Mashburn has misstated the nature of her relationship with Lois Marrero -- that it was not the happy union she has portrayed it to be and that Marrero had become committed to someone else.

Castillo said he would soon address that claim.

"We have to start clearing up some of the outlandish allegations lodged in the public recently," he said.

Maria Marrero, Lois' mother, stood quietly to one side during Castillo's comments. She declined to comment about the vote but did respond to a question about same-sex couples.

"I supported my daughter, and I support the issue," Mrs. Marrero said.

As her attorney, Martin Bubley, answered reporter's questions, gay rights activist Nadine Smith began to pepper him with questions as to why he was not acknowledging Mashburn and Lois Marrero's 10-year relationship.

"The Florida Legislature is the proper place for them to change that law," Bubley said. "Therefore, there is no way Mickie Mashburn can claim to be a legal surviving spouse."

Brenda Marrero, Lois Marrero's sister, questioned Mashburn's characterization of her relationship with Lois Marrero.

"Here is a woman who was not willing to put Lois on the title of her home," she said, referring to Mashburn. "Yet Lois was supposed to leave her her pension?"

Brenda Marrero also took issue with the gay and lesbian rights groups. "Strategically, we agree with them. Tactically, we believe they have made a mistake with focusing on taking sides.

"This is a global issue. It is not about Mickie."

Castillo promised the board a costly court battle if it denied Mashburn the pension.

As the pension contract stands now, the spouse of an officer killed in the line of duty is entitled to half the officer's salary every year for the rest of the surviving spouse's life.

A committee of City Council, police and fire union members will meet today to discuss changing the wording of their contract to include beneficiaries.

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St. Petersburg Times

Relatives, companion to argue for pension
St. Petersburg, Fla.; Aug 28, 2001;

AMY HERDY;

They held hands as they walked together out of police Officer Lois Marrero's funeral last month.

Marrero's sister and Marrero's companion of 10 years made their way through a crowd of mourners outside Sacred Heart Catholic Church before stepping into separate cars.

Mickie Mashburn and the Marrero family have been divided since.

Today they will be on opposite sides of a debate with personal and political ramifications.

Mashburn plans to ask a city board this afternoon to award her Marrero's police pension, which ordinarily goes to a surviving spouse. It's worth about $28,000 a year for the rest of the beneficiary's life.

Marrero's family plans to argue that the money Marrero contributed to the pension - about $50,000 - should go to Marrero's estate. They oppose Mashburn's application.

The nine-member Police and Fire Pension Board will consider both sides today, said Chairman Tom Singleton. Because Florida law does not recognize same-sex marriage, the board's attorney says Mashburn is not entitled to the pension. A man and woman living together outside of marriage also would not qualify, Singleton said.

"As a trustee, I've got to follow the law," Singleton said.

To Mashburn's supporters, the law is the problem.

"The law needs to be changed, so that our families are recognized," said Nadine Smith, who heads Equality Florida, a gay advocacy group.

The spouse of an officer killed in the line of duty is entitled to half the officer's salary every year for the rest of the surviving spouse's life. Marrero was paid $55,000 a year, about the same as Mashburn, also a Tampa police officer.

If there is no spouse, the money an officer contributed typically is awarded to the estate, Singleton said.

Mashburn has said she believes Marrero would have wanted her to get the pension and thought Marrero's family would agree. But they don't.

Marrero's family was there when Marrero and Mashburn exchanged vows 10 years ago in a friend's home with about 30 guests. A reception followed.

But family members say they also were there the past five years when the relationship was crumbling. Marrero, they say, was in love with another woman when she was killed.

The other woman in Marrero's life has declined to step forward, prompting Mashburn's lawyer, Danny Castillo, to question whether she exists.

Marrero's family, however, say they know the woman. Maria Marrero, Lois' mother, showed a St. Petersburg Times reporter letters the woman and Marrero exchanged. The reporter also talked to the woman by telephone, but she would not divulge her identity. The woman, who lives in another state, said she and Marrero exchanged vows and rings of their own on April 7, 2000.

In a June 30, 2000, letter to the woman, Marrero wrote: "I gave you my heart and made a promise before you and God that I will always be by your side for better or worse. Your loving wife, Lois."

Mashburn's supporters say whether another woman was in Marrero's life does not change the fact that Mashburn and Marrero lived together as a couple.

Smith, the Equality Florida head, calls talk of another woman "insidious" and said it would not be an issue had their union been legally recognized.

Smith sees a double standard: "We won't recognize your marriage, but we will use that as a marker to determine whether your relationship was valid."

Anyone who lives with a domestic partner should have legal protection, lawyers say.

"You should document for the event of a breakup, incapacity or death," said Elizabeth Schwartz, a Miami Beach lawyer specializing in family law.

It is possible for same-sex couples to dissolve their union, Schwartz said. "Whoever did the ceremony usually has provisions."

Frank Gagliano, 38, of Naples, Fla., knows firsthand how important documentation can be.

Ron Pierce, his partner of five years, died in a helicopter crash last year while working as a photojournalist in Deerfield Beach.

Pierce left no will, so everything went to his family, who did not approve of their relationship, Gagliano said.

The family changed the locks on the couple's home, which Pierce owned, and Gagliano had to get a court order to get his belongings. Personal effects, such as photos of the two of them, were gone. "I don't think I've ever stopped grieving," he said.

Marrero apparently left no will, though even that would not affect the pension, Singleton said. He was unsure how a will would affect the awarding of Marrero's pension contributions.

Marrero did not name Mashburn as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy. Castillo, however, said Marrero named Mashburn as the beneficiary of a police union benefit that will pay her the equivalent of a year's pay.

If the Pension Board rejects Mashburn's application, Castillo plans to challenge the decision in court.

The stakes are high for Mashburn, whose position with the Police Department could be in doubt because of an off-duty injury.

Mashburn severely injured a knee two years ago when she was hit by a car while riding a bicycle. Mashburn, a patrol officer, has been assigned to temporary light duty in the detective division the past two years. Officers who do not meet the department's physical requirements can be dismissed.

- Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report.Amy Herdy can be reached at (813) 226-3386 or herdy@sptimes.com.

Unwed couples can have legal protections

Lawyers recommend legal protections for unmarried couples. Elizabeth Schwartz, a Miami Beach attorney, offers the following list:

A will: A simple way to make your intentions clear about minor children or belongings.

Properly titled deeds and accounts: Helps avoid delays in probate.

Durable power of attorney: Gives a partner legal authority.

Designation of Health Care Surrogate: Clarifies access and decision making.

Living will: States how you would want to be treated in case of a terminal illness.

Designation of pre-need guardian: Specifies who makes medical and financial decisions.

Designation of pre-need guardian for minor child: Specifies who will care for a minor child should you become disabled.

Beneficiary designations: Clears up potential conflicts in your will.

Co-habitation agreement: Divides financial and domestic responsibilities while together and what happens in the event of a breakup.

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St. Petersburg Times

More roommates than soul mates

St. Petersburg, Fla.; Aug 18, 2001;

AMY HERDY;

A month before she was killed by a fleeing bank robber, Tampa police Officer Lois Marrero told her family that if something were to happen to her, at least she had experienced the joy of knowing a soul mate.

She was in love, she told her mother.

But no longer with Mickie Mashburn, the fellow officer whose relationship with Marrero came into the public spotlight when Marrero was killed July 6 and has led to a debate over whether pension benefits should be paid to partners of gay city employees.

"One of the last things Lois told me," said Maria Marrero, Lois Marrero's mother, "is that she wanted out" of her relationship with Mashburn. She was in love with somebody else, a woman she had known for some years.

The revelation adds yet another twist to Mashburn's effort to be recognized as Marrero's surviving spouse and to be the recipient of her pension.

On Friday, when Mashburn filed a formal application for the pension, she movingly invoked Marrero's name. Money had nothing to do with it, she said.

"Lois would want this," Mashburn told reporters gathered in her lawyer's office. "It's the right thing to do.

"Understand, this was a marriage."

The pension would give Mashburn, 48, about $576,000 should she live until age 72, said Danny Castillo, Mashburn's lawyer.

Mrs. Marrero believes Mashburn is painting a false picture of the state of the 10-year relationship, and said that was why she was speaking out.

"If they had been happy, I think it would have been very fair," she said. "But I feel very strongly Lois would not have wanted it."

For the last five years, Mrs. Marrero said, Lois had not been happy with Mashburn, and the women were more roommates than life partners.

Lois, who would have been 41 Friday, had maintained a close relationship with the other woman for the last five years, she said, and the two had exchanged love letters, cards and even rings. Mrs. Marrero showed a Times reporter some of the letters and cards.

"We have so much potential together. I have never given up on you," read a letter left by Lois to the woman. "This love has a hold on me."

A Happy Anniversary card to Lois from the woman dated November 1999 read, "Here's thinking of you on our third anniversary. Forever yours."

The reasons her daughter did not leave Mashburn, Mrs. Marrero said, were complicated.

The couple was in debt, and Lois did not want to leave Mashburn with unpaid bills. And there was a threatening cloud on the horizon: Mashburn's $50,000 a year job with the Police Department looked to be in jeopardy.

In August 1999, one of Mashburn's knees was injured in a bicycle accident when she was hit by a car. Since the accident, Mashburn had not been able to meet the department's physical fitness standards, and TPD policies call for such officers to eventually be terminated if they have reached their maximum recovery.

Marrero's death has complicated any TPD decision on Mashburn's future.

Mrs. Marrero said she had supported her daughter's relationship with Mashburn at first, and had welcomed her into the family.

She has not spoken to Mashburn since the funeral, she said, despite repeated attempts to reach her. Mrs. Marrero said at one point she went to Mashburn's home and was turned away at the door by another police officer.

On Friday, when a Times reporter sought to ask Mashburn about her relationship with Lois Marrero and whether she had any knowledge of the other woman, Mashburn simply said, "I'm not going to answer it."

She said she had not tried to contact the Marrero family since the funeral "because I am trying to grieve."

She said that while she has been on light duty at TPD since August 1999 because of her knee injury, she was not worried about losing her job.

Castillo, Mashburn's lawyer, said it was the first evidence he had heard of any strife between Marrero and Mashburn. He suggested the story of a split in the relationship was being generated by Marrero's sister, Brenda Marrero.

"Brenda Marrero stands to lose a lot of money" if Mashburn receives the pension, Castillo said, because if there is no spouse to receive death benefits, any unclaimed pension contributions are typically awarded to someone's estate.

The unclaimed contributions in this case total about $50,000. Since there was no will, Castillo said, Marrero's family stands to get the unclaimed contributions should Mashburn's claim for spousal benefits be denied.

Brenda Marrero said Castillo was mischaracterizing her involvement in the matter. Her parents had hired an attorney about a week ago to name her executor of the estate, she said, based on a decision by the family.

"I'm the personal representative, but I am not a beneficiary," Brenda Marrero said.

It's not clear whether the existence of another relationship in Marrero's life would have any effect on Mashburn's effort. Her petition for the benefits will be heard at the the city pension board's next meeting, which is Aug. 28.

The board will not make a decision that day because the pension attorney must research the issue before they can vote on it, said police Detective Tom Singleton, chairman of the city police and fire pension fund.

However, the law is clear, Singleton said, and awards pension benefits to legal spouses only.

To change the pension benefits, he said, would require a new definition in the police and fire union contract. The members would have to approve the change, as well as the Legislature.

The city has proposed allowing people to name their own beneficiaries, and that is one way this issue could have been prevented, said Shannon Minter, an attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco.

In the meantime, Minter said, the questionable status of Marrero's and Mashburn's relationship could have some bearing.

Since same-sex couples cannot legally marry, he said, "You have to use some other way to find out if this was a serious, committed relationship."

- Amy Herdy can be reached at (813) 226-3386 or herdy@sptimes.com

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