In re the Claim of Cooney

Appeal from a decision of the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board, filed December 24, 2002, which reduced claimant’s benefit rate to zero.

After 29 years of service with Bell Atlantic, claimant left in the beginning of March 1998 and started working for Lucent Technologies, Inc. later that same month. At the time he left Bell Atlantic, claimant received a lump-sum distribution from a pension plan funded by Bell Atlantic and rolled it into an existing individual retirement account in his name. He subsequently enrolled in a pension plan funded by Lucent and, pursuant to a portability agreement…