Who Does Time?

The article in this week's issue of BusinessWeek Magazine read; "White-Collar Crime: Who Does Time?" It was an article in reference to the start of the two key figures in the Enron case; Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay. As an aside if anyone is interested in a very good movie about Enron; please rent the DVD; "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room". It is a documentary about the rise and fall of Enron and I found it fascinating. It wasn't biased it reported the facts and the facts are extremely confusing because Enron (in my opinion) was a catastrophe of epic proportions and to pin the demise on any one person is just not possible. There were so many factors involved in the failure that I found it mind boggling.

Getting back to the article in BusinessWeek about white collar crime. The article was very brief and it outlined some very high profile white collar scandals and how much prison time was associated (if any) with these crimes. Going back to one of the first high profile corporate (white-collar) crimes in the late 1980's with Michael Milken the "junk bond king" who served a prison sentence of less than 2 years and walked away with $500 million in the bank. More recently Dennis Kozlowski the CEO of Tyco who received 8 to 25 (I am not sure how this works; does he get out in 8 years with good behavior and if he doesn't behave properly does he serve the full 25?) years for swindling the company out of nearly $600 million. Then there is Richard Scrushy the CEO from HealthSouth who was accused of a $1.4 billion accounting fraud and was found not guilty on all counts by a jury. Finally there was Bernard Ebbers the CEO and founder of WorldCom who was found guilty of the $11 billion accounting fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

As you can see and as the article points out the results are all across the board and mostly arbitrary. I showed my wife the article and she asked what is the most important criteria in defending oneself against these allegations; is it the defense attorney, the prosecuting attorney, the judge, or the jury. I think it is a combination of all of these things because without a quality defense attorney the defendant will get buried; with a solid prosecutor the defendant can get buried; with a judge who is having a bad day the defendant can get buried and without a reasonable jury the defendant can get buried. It is not in my best interest to figure these things out because I will be go crazy.

I have accepted the fact of what I have done and will face the consequences associated. I know there is still a long way to go but at least I seem to be going in the right direction which is forward. The question was posed to me earlier today; "how do I feel now when I look back at what I have done?" I try NOT to look back but when pressed for an answer I feel stupid and I didn't realize how bad a compulsive gambling problem I had. I feel stupid because the things I have done no rational or sane person would have done and I feel stupid because I didn't get help earlier for my compulsive gambling problem. I cannot change any of these things and this is what I will have to live with the rest of my life.

What I do know is that I am doing the absolute best to get my life back in order. I am happy with myself today and I becoming the person I am destined to be. I will make myself proud and I will make my family proud because I am getting the help I so desperately needed all these years and it is not too late. Who knows what the courts will decide and whatever they do decide I will accept because I brought all of this on myself. It was my dysfunctional brain that caused this misery and it will be my functional brain that will turn this misery into a positive.