Prosecutors Struggle to Catch Up to a Tidal Wave of Pandemic Fraud

[Tenjikuronin | 1,748]

Quote

But many seemed to act out of opportunism and greed, splurging on a yacht, a mansion, a $38,000 Rolex or a $57,000 Pokemon trading card.

Vinath Oudomsine bought the Pokemon card in January 2021, after receiving a loan from the Small Business Administration for a nonexistent business. He pleaded guilty to defrauding the loan program in October 2021, leaving the U.S. government responsible for selling the card.

Quote

In the case of Oudomsine, the Pokemon card purchaser, his attorneys argued in March that a judge should be lenient in deciding his sentence because the fraud had taken hardly any time at all.

“It is an event without significant planning, of limited duration,” said Brian Jarrard, who was Oudomsine’s attorney at the time.

That didn’t work.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/prosecutors-struggle-catch-tidal-wave-175238430.html

 

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

I mean, I get it, but personally I think that they should let the guy off as far as jail time and such until they start handing out sentences and levying fines for all the employees of big companies that ate up all the small business loan money that their Fortune 500 companies didn't need and absolutely didn't qualify for.  He gamed the system in much the same way that others did, he just lacked the corporate shield the biggest fraudsters had, which is total nonsense.

[Strange | 1,700]

Yeah I’m having a hard time pointing fingers at this dude when the same courts allow corporate ghouls to get away with the same thing constantly, and on a much larger scale.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

6 hours ago, Strange said:

Yeah I’m having a hard time pointing fingers at this dude when the same courts allow corporate ghouls to get away with the same thing constantly, and on a much larger scale.

Exactly.  I mean, they're not buying Pokemon cards, either as a "legit" collectible or just because they can, but the charge for the crime would be the same--fraud.  The guy isn't going to jail because he bought Pokemon cards with government money, he's going to jail because he presented himself as a small business to get government money but wasn't.  Large companies ALSO aren't small companies in any way, shape, or form, so they should receive the bitchslap of the legal system even harder than random one off men and women who tried to scam the system because Fortune 500 companies have WHOLE FLOORS of lawyers to know better on their behalf and to tell them so.  Sadly, they also have whole floors of lawyers to tell them how to flout the system, how likely they are to get caught, and how likely prosecution is should they be caught.  A crime isn't a crime if a rich man can get by with it but a poor one can't.