Our legal system at work...

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202427788088

"A former executive of insurance heavyweight American International Group Inc. was sentenced to four years in prison Tuesday in a fraud case that authorities say cost shareholders more than $500 million.

Christian Milton declined to comment during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Hartford, Conn. He was ordered to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons on March 25, and his lawyers said they were preparing an appeal.

Judge Christopher Droney also fined Milton $200,000.

Milton, 61, AIG's vice president of reinsurance from 1982 to 2005, was convicted last year of conspiracy, securities fraud, mail fraud and making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Authorities expect Milton to be deported to his native England after he serves his sentence.

The investigation also led to the convictions of four General Re Corp. executives last year for their roles in manipulating AIG's financial statements.

Prosecutors said New York-based AIG paid Gen Re in a secret side agreement to take out reinsurance policies with AIG in 2000 and 2001, propping up AIG's stock price and inflating reserves by $500 million.

Reinsurance policies are backups purchased by insurance companies to completely or partly insure the risk they have assumed for their customers.

Milton's lawyer, Frederick Hafetz, told the judge before the sentence was announced that Milton is a good person who was known for helping AIG employees with their problems, including two workers who died from AIDS in the 1980s.

Hafetz also said Milton didn't benefit personally from the fraud, which he called an aberration in Milton's life."

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http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/265402

A homeless man robbed a Louisiana bank and took a $100 bill. After feeling remorseful, he surrendered to police the next day. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

Roy Brown, 54, robbed the Capital One bank in Shreveport, Louisiana in December 2007. He approached the teller with one of his hands under his jacket and told her that it was a robbery.

The teller handed Brown three stacks of bill but he only took a single $100 bill and returned the remaining money back to her. He said that he was homeless and hungry and left the bank.

The next day he surrendered to the police voluntarily and told them that his mother didn’t raise him that way.

Brown told the police he needed the money to stay at the detox center and had no other place to stay and was hungry.

In Caddo District Court, he pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison for first degree robbery.



So... $500 million of corporate fraud or $100 from a bank? If you're going to do it make it worth it and maybe the legal system will make sure you're rewarded in the end!!!

terrible stuff.

The optimist would say that the homeless guy at least gets room and board... The pessimist says he gets the shaft in more ways than one...

Violent crime vs non violent crime. Still logic is being attacked here.

Not sure how violent a hand in a jacket and handing back most of the money is... But I get your point. I could dig up cases of tax evasion (Snipes heading to jail comes to mind), drug dealing, and other non-violent crimes that have fetched higher sentences than murder. Hell, that 15 years for stealing $100 is higher than most murder convictions...

A person or people robbing a bank is an instant felony and carries heavy federal crime penalties. Yet a bank robbing the public is not a big deal. And the judicial system is a special kind of Helen Keller.

Johannes Mersehle executed a man and got two years.

Vince Neil killed a man and got 15 days in jail.

It took five appeals for Calvin Burdine to get a mistrial declared after his lawyer slept through his case.

Reading this actually made me sick to my stomach.

GDPofDRC wrote:

A person or people robbing a bank is an instant felony and carries heavy federal crime penalties. Yet a bank robbing the public is not a big deal. And the judicial system is a special kind of Helen Keller.

Johannes Mersehle executed a man and got two years.

Vince Neil killed a man and got 15 days in jail.

It took five appeals for Calvin Burdine to get a mistrial declared after his lawyer slept through his case.

Exactly... It just leaves you shaking your head in disbelief.