THE BRONX (PIX11) -- The city once vowed it would never forget the ultimate sacrifice of Miosotis Familia, but the slain NYPD officer’s children say that promise has been broken.
Eight years later, they’re still fighting to receive their mother’s death benefits.
Genesis Villella has been walking past a portrait of her mother for the past eight years, and her murder still doesn’t feel real. However, she vividly recalls a conversation they once had.
“She said, ‘Genesis, if anything happens to me because of my job, I need you to take care of Peter and Delilah,’” Villella recalled.
Three years later, in July 2017, NYPD Officer Miosotis Familia was executed in the line of duty. With Villella’s father also deceased — tragically killed in the Flight 587 crash in Queens — she was left to raise her younger siblings.
She adopted 12-year-old twins, Peter and Delilah. “I was 21 years old, raising children on my own, and I was barely an adult,” she said.
But after all these years, Villella is still fighting to obtain her mother’s death benefits from her pension plan. “It’s an extremely complicated issue with a very simple solution,” she said.
Villella aged out of the five-year window to receive her mother’s pension. And as the legal guardian of the twins, they weren’t eligible either.
“The people who were supposed to help me refused to help me,” she said.
She has been urging the New York City Council to change a decades-old law that would help rectify her unique and painful situation. But she feels the city — including the police unions — has turned its back on her family.
Recalling how, behind the scenes, they say, ‘We’re going to be there for you.’ Now saying she's realized that promise was broken.
In a statement, PBA President Pat Hendry told PIX11 News:
“Elected leaders must work together to ensure they are caring for our fallen sister’s children with the same commitment and compassion that she showed every day she wore the uniform.”
Council Majority Leader Amanda Farías is standing in Villella’s corner, working to do right by the children and potentially others in the future.
“We’re trying to navigate at the state and city level to make sure we can legally pass something beneficial to her and her siblings,” Farías said.
“We’re working on a time frame for age limits and what’s allowable with the pension,” she added.
In a statement, Julia Agos, a spokesperson for Speaker Adrienne Adams, said:
“The family of NYPD Detective Miosotis Familia should not have been forced to fight for the benefits they deserve from the sacrifice of her public service to the city. Speaker Adams and Council leaders are working collaboratively with state lawmakers and other stakeholders to advance a law in the coming weeks that resolves this issue for Detective Familia’s family and prevents any other family from facing similar hardship.”
If the City Council passes the bill, another hurdle remains: pension provisions are cemented at the state level. That’s where Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz comes in.
“We're trying to make a change to the pension law...It’s my intention we do the right thing for this family,” Dinowitz said.
The city council has until June, the end of the NY legislative session, to approve the city law in order to proceed at the state level.
“My mom was a cop for 12 years — does that mean nothing?” Villella asked.
“I can’t let her memory fade,” she said.
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