No one can accuse former Browns linebacker Mychal Kendricks of being all that bright. He knew he had participated in (and profited from) an insider trading scheme whereby he gained an illegal $1.2 million, yet he told the team’s general manager that he was a victim in the case, not one of the perpetrators.
But now that the truth has come out, he’s been sacked and is almost certainly facing prison time. The feds don’t play when it comes to insider trading; virtually everyone who gets caught and convicted goes to prison for some period of time. Martha Stewart spent five months in a federal prison in West Virginia, and another five months on home confinement for insider trading, which is just about the right sentence. She also was able to pick up her career right where she left off upon her release. She got a second chance.
And Kendricks should also get a second chance (with the Browns or another team) once he serves a sentence similar to the one Stewart served. Fair is fair all over the world.
Fairness is what brings me to the case of Paul Guadalupe Gonzales, better known as the “Dine and Dasher” of Los Angeles. This 46-year-old creep would meet women via dating websites, invite them to dinner at high-end restaurants, and then, after making a pig of himself, he would pretend he had to take an important phone call, leaving them stuck with the bill, one of which was $250. In total, he scammed 10 women and ate close to a thousand dollars worth of food before being apprehended.
Gonzales is now sitting in the county jail under $315,000 bail and, according to news sources, faces a maximum of 13 years in prison if convicted of all charges. Now there’s no doubt this dude is a real piece of pond scum, but the criminal justice system makes itself look foolish and unfair when a bail of this amount is set for a non-violent crime. And for a possible sentence of this length to even be considered is laughable if it weren’t for the fact in America it could possibly happen. Again, fair is fair all over the world.
Yes, I can imagine the women he preyed on for the free meals being really, really pissed off at Gonzales, but the worst punishment he should suffer for his “crime” is probation, restitution, a stiff fine and weekly washings of the women’s cars for the next two years. That should cure him.
The final case of crime and punishment is somewhat different since there really wasn’t a criminal case brought forth. It has to do with the comic Louis C.K., who, for the first time, took to the stage last week at an NYC comedy club since being outed for masturbating in front of women.
Some female comics — and others, I among them — are outraged that he is back performing less than a year after the story of his misbehavior broke, sans any real mea culpa. And his critics are doubly upset and dismayed because the crowd gave him a standing ovation as he took the stage.
This is one of the conundrums posed to the #MeToo movement. What is the appropriate punishment when the behavior of some creep is offensive but doesn’t rise to the level of criminal prosecution?
Is staying out of the spotlight for a year (spent traveling around Europe) while only making a brief, weak, non-apology enough? While I certainly don’t think so, I still don’t know how much apologizing is enough.
I personally would like to see Louis C.K. take to the stage and do a monologue on the wrongness of the behavior he engaged in — for starters. He could discuss how his selfish, uncaring and negatively impactful behavior toward the women he took advantage of did damage to them.
As a society, we need to try to come to some kind of agreement — if that’s possible — on what is the appropriate punishment for individuals that run afoul of commonly held standards of decency. Certainly, those folks who ignore such standards should be punished, but for how long? At some point, virtually everyone deserves a second chance; but when should that second chance be granted, and by whom?
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.
2 Responses to “MANSFIELD: Crime & Punishment”
Tedolph
Sorry Mansfield, public sexual behavior is a crime.
Dick Peery
If we make commonly held standards of decency a criterion, a lot of comedy clubs will shut down. Not to mention legislative bodies and-above all-the Executive Mansion.