Justice for Thieves

Larry Langford is in trouble with the law. The mayor of Birmingham, Alabama has been accused of accepting bribes to steer business to friends when he was president of the Jefferson County Commission. If convicted, Langford faces the possibility of hundreds of years in prison.

Bernie Madoff made off with billions of other people’s dollars and got sentenced to 150 years in prison. Madoff may or may not spend the rest of his life in prison. Texas crook Allen Stanford cheated elderly clients out of billions of dollars. He faces 250 years in jail. Raj Rajaratnam is a billionaire who is in hot water for insider trading and giving money to the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist organization. The New York Times reports that Rajaratnam’s arrest has hedge fund operators feeling queasy, perhaps worried that they might be next.

Ken Lewis’s golden parachute got a little tarnished last week when Special Master for Compensation, Kenneth Feinberg asked him to leave without this year’s salary and bonuses. Lewis brought Bank of America to its knees by acquiring Merrill Lynch. He’s been asked to go without $1.5 million. It sounds like a lot of money, but it amounts to just over 1 per cent of his retirement package.

Something needs to frighten the robber barons. As they get richer, the rest of the country faces foreclosure, spiraling health care costs, and a recession that will not quit.

In the United States, a criminal may be sentenced to 25 years or death for taking a life. Criminals like Madoff and Stanford have ruined the lives of countless others, and lived like kings while they did it. Their victims, like those of Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, will have to sue them to try to recoup some of their losses. In some cases, victims will get nothing.

There is no way to know how many people these thieves deprived of college educations, proper end-of-life care or other niceties of life. It is clear that a class of people exists that believes it is exempt from the laws that govern the rest of society. Because they do not use a handgun to rob their victims, the members of this class do not regard themselves as criminals.

Unfortunately, they don’t just live on Wall Street. If they did, Americans could simply avoid them. Earlier this year, a Bryan, Texas justice of the peace was arrested for soliciting bribes to do his job. Predators motivated by greed seem to be everywhere.

Prosecutors are seeking sentences that will seriously interfere with criminals’ enjoyment of the spoils. This is good news. Allen Stanford’s assets have been frozen, and he now depends on a public defender for legal counsel. The judge in the case wants to prevent him from using up the money he stole on his defense.

Too many times, some minion of high finance gets in trouble, serves a few years, and returns to the posh life he or she left behind. It hardly seems like much punishment. Now it looks like prosecutors are going to hit the greedy where it really hurts by taking assets and making sure that guilty men are too old to enjoy what they stole. It’s about time.