Wednesday, July 09, 2008

And so it goes...


Well, the appeal verdict is in Vincent Lacroix of Norbourg scandal fame (the biggiest financial scandal in Québec history) has won - in a manner of speaking. His sentence has been reduced from 12 to 8.5 years.

Since his is a non-violent crime, he will probably be out after only 1/6th of his sentence, meaning that he could be free in about a year.

The appeals judge noted that his original sentence had been too harsh.

True, this was a "victimless" crime. No one was physically harmed. What's the big deal if lots of people lost their life's savings and had to come out of retirement and go to work again. It's not like anyone was hurt. After all, it's good to be productive!

Honestly, I really wonder about the justice system in this country. I'm not sure whether the scandal is the swindle or the sentence.

9 comments:

furiousBall said...

you're right, no matter which scandal - he wins in both counts

Cycling Goddess said...

I really hate the way they call it "victimless". Like losing your retirement fund is not harming you. Yeah, sure depend on society to wipe your ass when you can't do it yourself anymore.

The judge is a fucking idiot. If it had happened to him, his mother or any other member of his family, I gather his views on the whole thing would be different...

noha said...

yup, soooo not "victimless". I can't understand how so-called white collar criminals get off so easy...

Ian Lidster said...

When did you last hear of an appeal court judge saying: "No, sorry, I don't think his sentence was harsh enough."

Not only are our 'appointed' judges far too soft, they are also arrogant and cowardly.

Anonymous said...

oh it is SO true--- there's an American comedian, Wanda Sykes, who has done a BRILLIANT fucking BRILLIANT rant on this-- (ours was Enron-- among many others) and her final thrust was she'd rather be robbed by some guy in the alley as all he's taken is her wallet when these guys take YOUR LIFE---

word.

~bluepoppy

Anonymous said...

Jail is not an adequate sentence for people like this anyway. He should be forced to work at some tough job 16 hours a day and all his pay will go to pay back the people he stole from. He gets to keep just enough to rent him a bed to sleep in and basic food. That's justice.

Anonymous said...

Defitely NOT a victim-less crime. Sounds like there were victims aplenty.

choochoo said...

I don't get what makes ppl able to run off with someone's life's savings like that. Same thing with other cons, like identity theft and those things. Those ppl must be incredibly emotionally stumped. There's not a lot of empathy going around there, anyways. Psychos, the lot of them.

And why does your word verification thingy claim that I spell things wrong, even though I don't? IT's bullying, is what it is!

Jazz said...

Fuball - Yep, he wins. And once he gets out, he'll no doubt disappear with all that money he claims he doesn't have.

Animal - He'd say he's just upholding the law, looking at precedents etc. Why not set a new damn precedent and uphold the first judgement?

Noha - Um... because the judges and lawyers are white collar too? Just a thought.

Ian - Spot on.

BP - Yeah, I'd rather get my wallet stolen too.

XUP - Creative justice. I like that; we should have creative justice. But then it would be overturned in appeals court. When you think of it, not only did he rob these people of their retirement, they're paying for his stay in jail with their taxes, which they're paying more of since they're working again.

Citizen - There were. But no blood was spilled so it's ok.

Chooch - The guy even looks like a psycho.