So the gavel of justice came banging down hard on the former Governor yesterday . Despite open remorse and acceptance of full responsibility by "Blags", the Presiding Federal Court Judge handed down a stern sentence of 14 years. As reported, he will have to do probably close to 12 years. Not going to be easy for a 55 year old former politician.
So reading about his sentence in the Times this morning got me thinking . Raj R , the former hedge fund manager a short while back received a sentence of 11 years . Raj allegedly earned $60 million in illegal profits arising from the illegal inside information he received and traded on .
So after looking at the totality of circumstances , which convicted individual warranted a stiffer sentence? Both were crimes of greed, ego and power. Both involved powerful, influential men . You could argue both were victimless crimes. Although Blags' crime involved the breach of public trust of a high ranking elected official and Raj's crime involved his utilizing illegal information which compromised the very fabric of the financial markets .
At the end of the day, in my opinion, Raj's crime was pure greed . But Blags' was more than that. If all evidence was to be believed he actually was trying to auction a United States Senate seat. Doesn't happen very often , and a message was sent out during sentencing that it should never ,ever happen again ! Sentence actually could have been worse.
After closely following these two cases, I have to continue to ask myself , what were you two guys thinking ? Hey, maybe they'll wind up as roommates.
This has been political analyst Steve Goldman reporting.
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