Former Newark Mayor Sharpe James leaves federal court in Newark in 2007. Photo: Noah K. Murray/The Star-Ledger

A New Jersey appeals court has ruled that former Newark Mayor and state Sen. Sharpe James is not entitled to a year of service credit in his retirement plan with Essex County College, where he worked for a year after his term as mayor ended, because of his fraud conviction.

A three-judge Appellate Division panel said in an unpublished opinion Tuesday that James' conduct while in office, though it did not involve his work with the college, was of such a nature that he should not receive credit for a year he spent as a senior fellow and a department director at the college.

According to the court, James was paid $150,000 for that final year of work at the college, and that salary could have had a major impact on the pension he is set to receive from the Alternate Benefit Program (ABP). James, before becoming an elected official, worked for years at the college, first as a physical education teacher and later a full professor.

Tuesday's ruling by Judges Carmen Messano, Patrick DeAlmeida and Francis Vernoia does not affect the benefits James built up during those prior years at the college.

The ruling affirms a decision by the ABP's acting director to deny James credit for that last year of service.

“We have considered petitioner's argument that he made positive contributions during his service in elected office, but we cannot conclude that it was unreasonable for the acting director to determine the petitioner's last year of employment at ECC constituted dishonorable service requiring forfeiture of the contested service credit,” the court said.

James' attorney, Newark solo Alan Dexter Bowman, did not return a call seeking comment.

Leland Moore, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, which represented the ABP in the appeal, declined to comment.

James, a Democrat, was the mayor of Newark from June 1986 until June 2006, and a state senator from June 1999 to January 2008.

In April 2008, a federal jury convicted James on five counts of fraud for conspiring to rig the sale of nine city lots to his mistress, Tamika Riley, who quickly resold them for hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit. James served nearly two years in prison. He has forfeited his other pension benefits in connection with his mayoral and senatorial service.

James, a graduate of Montclair State, became a physical education instructor at ECC in 1968. He eventually rose to the position of the director of athletics, chair of the physical education and recreation department, the acting director of the biology department, and a full professor, according to the ruling.

After being elected mayor in 1986, James took an unpaid leave of absence from the college.

After his last term as mayor ended, he rejoined the college, which named him the director and senior fellow at its newly created Urban Issues Institute. He put in for retirement in May 2007, and was indicted several months later.

The acting director of the ABP, in denying him pension credit, said his conduct was “grave and continuing” and that he betrayed his role as a public servant and as a role model.

James is now 82.