Steal billions, get house arrest, steal $100, 15 years prison

[David Rothscum]

http://www.ktbs.com/news/Man-who-took-one-bill-and-handed-rest-back-to-bank-teller-gets-15-year-sentence-23655/
A man who said he robbed a downtown Shreveport bank because he was out of a job and hungry has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for first-degree robbery.

Roy Brown, 54, of Audrey Lane, pleaded guilty in Caddo District Court to robbing the Capital One bank in December 2007.

Brown admitted walking up to a teller with one of his hands under his jacket and telling her it was a "stickup." The teller handed the man three stacks of bills and he took a single $100 bill, told her he was homeless and left, police said.

Brown surrendered to police the next day, telling them his mother didn't raise him that way.

Police let him sober up and interviewed him two days later. Police said Brown told them he needed money to stay in a downtown detox center, had nowhere to stay and was hungry -- so he walked up the street and robbed the bank.

[David Rothscum]

http://www.articlesbase.com/economics-articles/bernard-madoff-house-arrest-688676.html

The world's great rip off, greatest sham, larget ponzi scheme and the man gets to live in his $7,000,000 residence? And you want us to believe that there aren't two standards of justice? A man goes to jail for seven years for stealing a loaf of bread. And I am sure that you have heard of many other wild stories of extensive incarcerations for minor crimes. But a $50 BILLION dollar stock fraud and it merits only a house arrest?

Bernard Madoff, accused of the largest fraud in U.S. history, will be allowed to remain in his $7 million Park Avenue apartment instead of being sent to jail, under terms of an agreement announced today by federal prosecutors. Madoff was unable to meet the bond conditions set last week by a federal magistrate which required him to get four people to sign his personal recognizance bond.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, only Madoff's wife and brothers were willing to sign the document. But instead of ordering him held in jail, prosecutors agreed to home detention with electronic monitoring. A hearing had been scheduled for Wednesday in which Madoff was required to find two additional co-signers to vouch for him. But with the scandal swirling around Madoff, he was unable to find co-signers. So the judge modified the bail package, and gave lawyers until Monday to come up with additional paperwork.

Madoff, wearing a baseball cap and a black jacket, said nothing to reporters as he walked out of the federal courthouse in Manhattan and drove away in a sport-utility vehicle. He was at the courthouse to sign over his Upper East Side apartment and his homes in Palm Beach and the Hamptons for his $10 million bond. As someone has asked, don't those homes below to the investors now who lost $50 BILLION?

Well, not yet.

And for now Madoff is living free, but not really. His life is really over and if there's a reason he should be in jail, it's to protect him from those thousands of investors who had their life savings wiped out. Maybe Christopher Cox and the SEC should take some heat as well. Aftere all, they sanctioned Madoff's activites even though tipped off to many irregularities over a decade ago.

How about house arrest for those guys?  :-)

[Revolt426]

Madoff also got to keep his offshore bank accounts. Who knows what is in them. Probably could pay for his legal defense team 100 times over.

[Dig]

Hurricane aid 'paid for a holiday, porn, football and champagne'
http://news.scotsman.com/hurricanekatrina/Hurricane-aid-paid-for-a.2783959.jp
""We should look at prosecuting these crimes""
Published Date: 15 June 2006
By LARRY MARGASAK
IN WASHINGTON

THE United States government paid for sports season tickets, a sex change, a Caribbean holiday and even a divorce lawyer as up to $1.4 billion (£760 million) in aid for alleged victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita was misused, it was revealed yesterday.
Houston divorce lawyer Mark Lipkin says he cannot recall anyone paying for his services with a special debit card issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), but congressional investigators say one of his clients did just that.

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The ADVERTISEMENT$1,000 payment was only
one example cited in a catalogue of scams. Prisoners, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel, all were able to get taxpayer help, according to evidence that further damages the US disaster relief agency.

The abuses came to light as officials from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified before a House committee yesterday on their findings. Michael McCaul, of Texas, the chairman of a sub-committee overseeing an investigation of post-hurricane aid, called the bogus spending "an assault on the American taxpayer".

He said: "Prosecutors from the federal level down should be looking at prosecuting these crimes and putting the criminals who committed them in jail for a long time."

Aaron Walker, a FEMA spokesman, said the agency, already criticised for its poor response to Katrina, placed the highest priority during a disaster on getting help "quickly to those in desperate need of our assistance".

FEMA has identified more than 1,500 cases of potential fraud after Katrina and Rita, and it has referred those cases to the homeland security department's inspector general.

The GAO said it found people put up in hotels had often been paid twice, as FEMA gave them individual rental assistance and also paid hotels directly.

In one case, FEMA paid an individual $2,358 in rental assistance, while at the same time paying about $8,000 for the same person to stay 70 nights at more than $100 per night in a Hawaii hotel.

Among the items purchased with FEMA's emergency debit cards were an all-inclusive, one-week holiday in the Punta Cana resort in the Dominican Republic; five season tickets for the New Orleans Saints American football team; adult erotica products, and Dom Perignon champagne.

The GAO also told the hearing about an individual who used 13 different social security numbers - including their own - to receive $139,000 in payments on 13 separate registrations for aid. All the payments were sent to a single address.

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GAO is scritinizing $1,000 checks, but over $10 Trillion has been robbed from the US taxpayers and not one person is in jail.

AMERIKA!