Since the existence of a confidential cash settlement first surfaced – hidden from public view through a false name – Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski has sought to distance himself from its recipient.
“I do not have a close personal relationship with Mr. Philip Tirabassi,” Olsezewski told the Baltimore Sun in the wake of Brew reporting disclosing the settlement – and his administration’s push to use $550,000 in public funds to pay outside counsel to defend against a lawsuit seeking details about the retirement payout.
A Democrat running for the Congressional seat vacated by retiring Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, Olszewski says the settlement was made to protect taxpayers from litigation after the firefighter signed an “unauthorized” agreement, offered by a former county official, that transferred service time to his retirement account.
Olszewski called it “patently false” to suggest that the $83,675 check was a favor to Tirabassi’s younger brother John, a friend and former classmate at Sparrows Point High School.
In fact, public records show various business and political connections between Olszewski and the Tirabassi brothers.
In 2010, for example, Advance Realty Direct Inc. represented Olszewski and his wife when they purchased a two-story brick house in St. Helena.
Advance Realty Direct was 100% owned by Philip Tirabassi until it closed in December 2022. John Tirabassi was the company’s agent, according to state corporate and Multiple Listing Service (MLS) records.
The Tirabassis took a 3% commission on the transaction.
Six year later, Advance Realty, with Philip Tirabassi as broker and John Tirabassi as agent, handled the $135,000 purchase of land by the Olszewskis on Miller Island.
The couple subsequently built a $400,000 house on the lot, which boasts an expansive view of the Chesapeake Bay.
The Chesapeake Bay unfolds across the street from the 65-by-300-foot lot that Johnny and Marisa Olszewski purchased through the Tirabassi realty firm in 2016. BELOW: The house built on the land after Olszewski became county executive. (Zillow, Mark Reutter)
Political Contributors
The Tirabassi brothers (who are cousins of retired Maryland District Court Judge Philip N. Tirabassi) contributed to Olszewski’s political committee during his unsuccessful run for the state senate in 2014 and his surprise victory as county executive in 2018.
State Board of Elections records show they donated just over $3,000 in their own names and in the name of Advance Realty Direct. In addition, John Tirabassi was reimbursed $950 by “Friends of John Olszewski Jr.” for organizing volunteer meals and setting up outdoor advertising for the campaign.
The Brew has sent two lists of questions to Olszewski and his press office about his relations with the firefighter. They have not responded.
Tirabassi, reached at his home in Cockeysville, declined to comment.
The Tirabassi brothers handled the 2020 sale of the Olszewskis’ starter home in St. Helena (BELOW).
“I’m trying to be patient”
The most recent real estate transaction took place when Advance Realty sold the Olszewskis’ home in St. Helena for $189,900.
That happened on April 7, 2020, or one month before County Administrative Officer Stacey Rodgers and County Attorney James R. Benjamin Jr. signed a confidential settlement with Philip Tirabassi.
The document was revealed as part of a Maryland Public Information Act lawsuit filed by former county administrator Fred Homan.
Circuit Court Judge Michael Finifter recently ruled that the county improperly withheld documents from Homan and ordered the administration to disclose emails and other correspondence identified as pertaining to the Tirabssi case.
Tirabassi agitated for two years to get his county retirement benefits sweetened by adding the time he served as a Baltimore City firefighter.
The Brew has reviewed the voluminous document trove obtained by Homan. The material so far released traces two years of agitation by Tirabassi to get his retirement benefits sweetened by adding the time he served as a Baltimore City firefighter in the 1980s.
“I can’t begin to express to you the positive impact this would have on my retirement if I can finally get this time added to my credited work history,” he wrote to County Benefits Administrator Kathy Limpert in 2018.
The hundreds of emails the firefighter subsequently dashed off to Limpert and others were much more edgy and at times angry – and sprinkled throughout with references to “Johnny,” “Johnny O” and “the CE.”
In particular, Tirabassi pestered Patrick Murray, Olszewski’s chief of staff, to come to his aid when county officials balked at his request.
“Is he someone Johnny appointed?” he asked Murray, referring to then-Budget Director Keith Dorsey.
“Should I try to meet with him or should I wait for you and Johnny to get back to me first?” Tirabassi continued.
“Please set up a meeting with Keith and keep me posted. I spoke with him yesterday” was Murray’s prompt reply.
Eleven days later, Tirabassi complained again that he had still not gotten a response from Dorsey, cc’ing his message to Olszewski’s campaign email address.
“With the request coming from Kathy, you and Johnny O, I would at least expect a response,” he told Murray. “I’m trying to be patient.”
Seeking to win a seat in Congress this November, Olszewski cites his bold and transformative leadership as county executive, “instilling principles of equity and accountability back into our government.” (gojohnnyo.com)
Appealing to Johnny
Tirabassi claimed that he was due the service transfer for his period with the city fire department in the 1980s because he had never been notified in writing that he could transfer the credits.
After Dorsey denied his request, saying the six-month window of opportunity to transfer service credits between jurisdictions had expired back in 1990, Tirabassi appealed directly to Olszewski.
The county executive responded by ordering his new budget director, Edward P. Blades, to review the case and tasked his top aide, Stacy Rodgers, with quarterbacking it.
“At the request of the County Executive, we reviewed Mr. Dorsey’s findings and the additional documentation that you provided to Ms. Stacy L. Rodgers, County Administrative Officer,” Blades wrote to Tirabassi on September 10, 2019.
Again, his request was turned down.
“We regret that you were not able to transfer your service time,” Blades stated. “We firmly believe that the County exercised appropriate notification and acted in good faith in implementing the 1990 state legislation governing transfer of service time.”
Two months later, Rodgers reaffirmed that position in an email to Olszewski.
“Our position remains the same,” she wrote – namely that Tirabassi was not entitled to transfer his city service credits to the county – but added, “Candidly, I’m sure it will not be our last [response] to Mr. Tirabassi.”
CAO Stacy Rodgers with Johnny Olszewski. She retired in earlier this year after Olszewski announced his run for Congress. (Facebook)
Overruling the Experts
Rodgers was right.
Tirabassi persisted in his pressure campaign, hiring Jay D. Miller of the Peter Angelos law firm, who warned that unless the county satisfied his client’s claim, he would file a class-action lawsuit.
“I am imploring you to reconsider,” Miller wrote to County Attorney James R. Benjamin Jr. on February 21, 2020, “as the publicity that may be generated is not something any of us want.
“Call me,” he instructed Benjamin, “but it doesn’t make sense to debate this.”
The threat of a lawsuit led to a flurry of emails among Olszewski’s aides, with Murray quipping to Rodgers on March 5, “It’s the song that never ends.”
Finally, in May 2020 the administration came up with a settlement that would transfer one year and one month of Baltimore City service to Tirabassi’s 30 years of county service.
The settlement would provide Tirabassi with a special DROP (Deferred Retirement Option Program) lump sum payment of roughly $125,000 when he retired – the exact figure remains under wraps (see below).
How much did Baltimore County pay Tirabassi? The payments, most noticeably the DROP Lump Sum, were redacted in the county’s response to the Homan lawsuit.
“Simply remain silent”
Signed by Rodgers, Benjamin, Tirabassi and Miller, the agreement was cloaked in secrecy.
Tirabassi was instructed to “simply remain silent” if queried by his fellow firefighters or union reps, and further included these directives:
The Employee will respond with a mutually agreeable statement to be supplied by Baltimore County (e.g., “that matter is done” or “I retired and I am done with all that”). But the Employee and his attorney specifically agree that they will not indicate that the matter was settled. The Employee’s attorney, in order to comply with the spirit of the Confidentiality Clause, will not talk to anyone in a union or talk to any union members about this case.
The agreement, however, did not bar county employees from discussing the case.
And immediately a problem arose: the in-house counsel for the Baltimore County Employees’ Retirement System (ERS) said the settlement was illegal.
The administration did not have the discretion to grant something state law would not allow, assistant county attorney Susan T. Berger argued – especially something that was not approved by the ERS’s Board of Trustees.
“Until this case, no County Attorney and no one in the County Administration has ever, to my knowledge, negotiated a ‘secret’ settlement of a retirement case,” Berger wrote later to the ERS Board.
“To do so is illegal under the County Code, Sections 5-1-247 and 5-1-249,” she stated.
A week after giving her opinion, the veteran attorney, with 24 years of county service, was told she was out of a job.
TOMORROW: “I was fired because I said the Tirabassi settlement was illegal.”
• To reach a reporter: reuttermark@yahoo.com