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April 25, 2005
More Misleading Accounting in the Adelphia Corporate Scandal: Corporate Criminals Keep 80 Million Dollars and Avoid Charges
So, the masterminds of the Adelphia corporate scandal, who have robbed the public of billions of dollars, will get to keep almost eighty millions dollars of their ill-gotten gains, while being spared any criminal charges:
Adelphia Communications Corp. agreed on Monday to pay $715 million under a deal with the U.S. government that avoids criminal charges for accounting fraud against the now-bankrupt cable operator.The Rigas family, which founded the company, will forfeit 95 percent of its assets in Adelphia as part of the settlement agreements reached with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
...
The securities regulator said the assets the Rigas family will forfeit exceed $1.5 billion in value.
So, let's do the math here. If $1,500,000,000 is 95 percent of your assets, than the five percent you get to keep is ... $78,947,368.
In other words, this man walks away with almost 80 million dollars and no punishment. "Today is a day of restitution for the victims of corporate corruption," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apparently said in a statement.
Only if you buy into the tortured logic and misleading accounting of this Attorney General[corrected].
Most people would indeed be left with very little if 95 percent of their assets were seized, so it sounds as if there is some punishment. Of course, once you have stolen billions, you can give back 95 percent of it and remain obscenely rich.
Just imagine how much time Mr. Rigas would get if he had broken a window and stolen a few hundred dollars.
Posted by zeynep at April 25, 2005 07:45 PM
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