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"Madoff Mercy: How long should the Ponzi schemer go to prison for?"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this Slate commentaryby Harlan Protass, who uses all the ugly Wall Street news to spotlight the the over-emphasis of loss in how the federal sentencing guidelines deal with white-collar fraud.  Here are lengthy excerpts from an effective piece: [W]hen it comes to large-scale frauds involving public companies and their millions of shares, the guidelines' grounding in mathematics sometimes results in sentences that are, quite literally, off the chart.  They fall within the realm of prison terms usually reserved for mafia bosses, major international drug lords, cop killers, child molesters, and terrorists. Remember Jeffrey Skilling ? losses to Enron shareholders of more than $1 billion largely determined his 24-year-plus sentence...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on December 18, 2008 (boomark / email).