Mad as Hell
Posted by: Ed Chernoff
November 21, 2006

I don't know if any of you would be surprised to find out that sometimes I greatly hate what I do. Actually, I've been on a roll with that emotion. I stood in front of a a judge yesterday, who I consider a friend of mine, who asked me questions about my clients I simply could not answer; questions like, "How come they haven't come up with restitution for the complainants in the last 19 months?"

I probably should explain. I represent two people accused of stealing approximately $400K from their employer. They were charged about a year ago, but their theft was discovered in May of 2005. Esentially what they did was pad their expense accounts. Sales people and their like do this kind of thing all the time, but my clients took it quite abit farther than usual by creating false airline tickets for reimbursement and taking trips to Cancun on the company's dime.

Like most of my theft cases, after a while the theft got routine for them and they simply lost track of how much they were stealing. At some point the total became staggering, but it sneaks up on them in these types of cases. It's not like these people wake up one morning and say, "I'm going to steal 200K!" They would find that kind of theft to be revolting and immoral. The thought is, "I'm going to take about 500 and hope I don't get caught." Then when they don't get caught, the theft continues. I get cases like this all the time.

Even more magically, none of my clients in these cases have any idea what they did with that money. I'll sit for an hour in discussion with them, going over every significant "withdrawal" and they never know where the money went. Sometimes I want to choke them! Tell me it went to pay for your Uncle Charlie's surgery! A boob job maybe? Tell me you gave it to a church! Show me a receipt for anything. Hell, tell me you snorted it up your nose. Just tell me! Nope, it always appears the client spent the money on about 13,000 Half Caff, No fat lattes at Starbucks. They just piss it away.

Anyway.... this case. I really like these two clients. These folks are the kind of people you would expect to see at your family Thanksgiving table. One is female,in her early thirties, with a just walking one year old baby, two kids in college and a wonderful supportive husband. The other is mild mannered, polite, perhaps gay, agreeable 31 year old. Neither one has a criminal record... naturally. I was trying to convince the judge to give them probation. The prosecutor, flanked by the owner of the company(who looked just like one of those old bankers in those Washington Mutual commercials) wanted 20 years. Of course he wanted 20 years... he had already recieved total restitution from the insurance company. Why the hell not? It makes great conversation: "Yeah, I got money stolen from me and the Judge gave the guy 20 years. Aren't I special?" (By the way, one of my blog entries needs to be about my views regarding this culture of victimization.) So the judge asked me, "Why haven't they paid any restitution?"

Do you know what it is like to stand in the middle of a stage, everything competely black except fot a single spotlight shining on your forehead? I do, except that the blackness is a creation of my mind, and the spotlight is a metaphor for the ten eyes staring at me, waiting for an answer. An answer I didn't have. I couldn't tell the Judge about the numerous meetings I had with my clients explaining the need for upfront restitution. I couldn't tell the Judge that my clients hadn't the financial ability to pay because the evidence showed pretty well that for about three years they had supplemented their income rather extravangently. So I punted. I told him we were merely waiting for him to tell us where to pay the restitution. He smiled at me. I want to say patronizingly, but I know him too well. I think he was feeling my pain.

So, bottom line? He put my clients in jail and sentenced them to ten years.... but.... said he would "consider" shock probation if they came up with 70K in restitution upfront. In other words "SHOW ME THE MONEEEEEYYYY". That was yesterday. Today I got the word that one of them had already come up with the money and the other one was days away.

When I was hired, I was asked to get them probation. They had already admitted to the theft, so there was no fact issue to be resolved. It appears that their goal will be achieved, albeit awkwardly, and that pisses me off. It is never easy. Never.

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