In message <telecom24.327.11@telecom-digest.org>, Fred Atkinson wrote:
> The scam involved $242 million dollars, she is out only about a
> quarter of that, and she only gets two and a half years in jail?
> Is it any wonder these people keep right on doing this?
At least the Nigerian government has begun addressing the problem.
The punishment seems light, but let us compare it to a recent fraud case
in the USA.
$242 million is approximately 1/45th the size of the $11 billion fraud
that was perpetrated at MCI Worldcom, if the latest conviction in the
US holds up.
If the Nigerian government had used the USA's example as a guideline,
she should have been sentenced to 1/45'th of 25 years which is just
under 7 months.
No wonder these corporate types keep right on doing this in the US.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Although she was sentenced to 2.5
years, it was backdated to early in 2004 to credit her for the time
she spent waiting for her trial. Then, in Nigeria as in USA, the
actual time spent in prison is about 50 percent of the sentence, with
the remainder on parole. So half of 2.5 is 1.25 years, with credit for
time served since 2004 waiting for trial subtracted from that. I think
she has a month or two of time still to be served is all. What people
do not seem to understand is that like the court system, the
correctional system is its own bureaucracy. Within certain
constraints, correctional really does not care what the judge said or
recommended; they do their own thing. I mean, yes, they have to
observe the judge's orders to a certain extent, and they certainly
cannot exceed the time imposed by the court, but often as not, choose
to cut it _way, way_ back. And if the prison social workers choose to
write off about half of the overall sentence through the magic of
'prison accounting' and 'good time awards' do you think the prisoner
is going to complain any? Once the judge signed and stamped the Writ
of Mandamus, placing the person in custody, he is going to forget
about it and move on to the next case in front of him that day in the
never ending assembly line. Corrections has to discharge a certain
number each day in order to make room for the new offenders the
judicial assembly line is sending in. PAT]
The Wondrous One (trulywondrous@gmail.com)