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Edison police officer Anthony Sarni, accused of pressuring a women to model lingerie for him while he was in uniform in 2012, just struck the lottery with our tax dollars. (Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

The Edison police department, where a cop was charged with firebombing the home of his captain, is so consistently outrageous that it's hard to appall us anymore. And yet, these guys manage.



This week, another officer, known as the "lingerie cop," won more than $200,000 in a settlement with the township, after he returned to the scene of an emergency call while still in uniform to reportedly proposition a woman for sex.



You read that right: He got the payout. And because this is Edison, that's not all. Even worse than this settlement is the offer by the township to help the 42-year-old cop, Anthony Sarni, apply for a lifetime disability pension.

Lingerie cop settles with Edison for more than $200K



What, exactly, is this man's disability? Thanks to medical privacy rules, the taxpayers will never know. Was it a dent in his head that led him back to this woman's hotel room, to pressure her to model underwear for him?



Is this the same reason he's been on paid medical leave since August, for some unknown condition that flared up only after he got caught?



This much is obvious: The help-you-apply-for-your pension bit was thrown in because it was the only way for the township wrest his gun and badge away.



Herein lies two problems. The first is allowing internal affairs unit to handle these investigations, a recipe for disaster. The second is our broken pension system.



This man should have been fired from day one, yet we see this pattern again and again in Edison: A cop does something outrageous, then he's right back on the street. Here, Sarni admitted wrongdoing, but a judge still ordered the township to give him back his job, saying internal affairs had botched the investigation.

Betraying the badge: Edison police produce astonishing record of misconduct



The township disputes this and appealed, but now says it's settling to save the taxpayers any future attorney fees and prevent any more unfavorable rulings.



Regardless, we'd no longer have this problem if we'd passed a bill that would take investigations like this out of the hands of internal affairs and give them to the Attorney General's Office, where they rightfully belong.



But that's gone nowhere in the state Legislature. Maybe, instead of strong-arming the Democrats for his book deal, Gov. Christie could step in and actually fight the union special interests, as he does on YouTube.



Edison has had dozens of lawsuits filed by cops, costing taxpayers millions and millions of dollars. And officers that get into trouble frequently wind up applying for disability pensions because the law makes it so easy.



That's the other issue. A cop can make up an ailment, find a couple flexible doctors to sign off on it, and get up to two-thirds his annual salary for life - as much as $86,000 annually for Sarni, who will have a final salary of $130,240 - not to mention free health care without having to contribute a penny more to the system.



We don't know whether he'll end up getting a pension, or how much it will be. But based on the way things have gone so far in Edison, his future looks bright.

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