Quote of note:

His lawyer, Harold Rosenthal, told the judge that Tehin is now penniless and pleaded for a five-year term.

"Please give him a sentence that will allow him to still have some hope in his life," said Rosenthal, repeatedly referring to Tehin's age.

Tehin had faced a sentence of 12 1/2 to 15 1/2 years. The government agreed with probation officials, who recommended a 14-year sentence.

This bastard lived large by theft. What's the deal with this "have hope in his life?"

The significance of a 14 vs. 15 1/2 year sentence is probably about the minimum time served before you're allowed parole...like if your sentence is more than 15 years there is no possibility of release in less than 7 years, or if it's less than 15 years you're allowed to finnagle it down to three...something like that. I just don't know the details…I just know it represents leniency.

I think he should have been deemed to have used up all his hope when he hoped he'd get away with stealing from poor clients that he knew deserved the money because he himself had just proved it.

This leniency is not unusual in cases where people are abused by "professionals" necessarily entrusted with their affairs.

Regulators announced settlements Wednesday with three debt-counseling agencies that they said had bilked consumers out of more than $100 million, a scam they said was becoming increasingly common.

The three companies promised to help consumers manage their debts but in fact only made their problems worse, the Federal Trade Commission said.

Clients of the National Consumer Council, Debt Management Foundation Services Inc. and Better Budget Financial Services Inc. paid thousands of dollars to keep bill collectors at bay, but instead saw their debts, interest rates and late fees increase as the companies did little to help, the FTC said.

Some consumers were forced to declare bankruptcy when the companies told them to stop paying their bills but then didn't negotiate on their behalf, said Lydia Parnes, head of the FTC's consumer protection division.

"All three companies lied about who they were, what they could do for consumers and how much they charged," Parnes said at a news conference.

The companies agreed to give back a total of more than $25 million to consumers, and two are in the process of being shut down. None of the owners face jail time as the FTC does not have criminal authority. [emphasis added]

Stole $100 million. Returned $25 million. And how many people that had decided to pull themselves together, who screwed up the nerve to ask for help, now deeper in debt...that all-important credit score even lower...in the face of our new bankruptcy bill...

And on top of the theft, you have to realize something fundamental has rotted away from the inside. It's like when Abner Louima was tortured...that Volpe entity ran around the station bragging, bloody stick in hand, brandishing it like Zorro's sword. There's something fundamentally wrong when a cop can do something like that and expect congratulations from his peers. Even if his expectation was wrong. And you cannot call it a victory that one cop came forward to testify. Every cop in the precinct at the time should have stepped up.

I have a similar reaction to the credit counseling scammers. Honestly, I could almost understand jerking a couple hundred folks and get out, but how can you steal on that level...sign contracts and steal a hundred million (from broke folks, so you KNOW they jerked a lot of people)...and expect to get away with it?

Something is wrong with an environment in which you can even consider that as a business plan.

This punishment does not bring parity or justice. And the crimes get large, large enough to distort the economic environment, they can have impact that make street crime pale into insignificance. Again, it's not a popular idea but you can always arrange defense from physical assault. But the field is tilted against you when defending against the fraudulent lawyer or credit counselor service, or Halliburtonesque government contractor or corrupt cop. And the practice of assessing penalties that fall far short of impacting the criminals to th same degree that victims were insures businesses will continue to be set up explicitly to defraud the public and white collar crime will continue to grow.