Commit a crime, do the time, learn your lesson, come back and participate in society as a free person. For all but the most heinous crimes, America forgives, and lets one back in to play the game of life. Martha Stewart, Mark Wahlberg, Winona Ryder, Mike Tyson, Natasha Lyonne, Tim Allen, Snoop Dog, all exemplify people who came back, or even hit the limelight for the first time after committing a crime and completing their prison sentence.
One crime Americans do not forgive is fraud. Among the recent most spectacular purveyors of fraud were Bernie Madoff. He died in jail, and was never getting out alive. His son Mark Madoff committed suicide.
Kenneth Lay, the CEO at Enron, a company that issued fake documents ultimately resulting in a rip-off of $74 Billion to its investors, died six weeks before being sentenced. Clifford Baxter, an executive at Enron,, supposedly committed suicide, in his Mercedes, in a place called Sugarland. There was no redemption for Enron, though Baxter was supposedly one of the good guys trying to prevent the fraud that other executives at Enron developed and implemented.
Like Baxter, Daniel Pirron, a partner in the global consulting firm of Deloitte, committed suicide when Deloitte was linked to inappropriate financial transactions.
O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of murder, but the accusation so ruined his reputation he never obtained another gig of any kind: No commercial endorsements, no movies, no longer one of America’s most beloved celebrities. As citizens learned of OJ’s temper, his physical abuse of his wife, it became apparent OJ’s beautiful smile, kind ways, gentle demeanor, had all been a fraud.
Fraud is just something an individual cannot recover from. It’s a life time sentence, and often a death sentence.
This is why Donald J. Trump is so unwilling to admit his fraud regarding “The Big Lie.” The American public though, should declare him guilty, and impose the same sentence on him, Trump, that they have imposed on OJ.
Unlike OJ who won in court, Trump tried out his fraud in our judicial system and lost sixty times. Even in courts presided over by Judges he nominated, Trump lost. Witnesses to the January 6th Committee have testified Trump knew he lost the election to Joe Biden. Trump’s Republican Campaign Manager told him he lost, his Republican Attorney General told Trump he lost. Trump’s Republican White House Counsel told him to concede in December of 2020. But Trump stuck to the fraud. Trump knows confessing to fraud is financial, political, celebrity, death.