Terrence Williams gets 10 years in prison for defrauding NBA's benefit plan

[Roy H.]

Good. That is a disgrace.

I'm curious what justifies the split, where some guys get no jail time and Williams gets a decade.  I guess they're after the lead guy, but none of this would have happened without plenty of willing participants.

I don't necessarily disagree with Williams' sentence (I just don't know enough about what actually happened to form a proper opinion), but it's not like these other guys didn't know what they were getting themselves into. Seems they got off pretty easy.

Yeah.  In the case of Allen, cited above, he stole $400k.  He gets community service for that.  The punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime.

It also says TA paid back the funds, which may have had an impact?

It usually does in these "white collar" crimes, but I'm not sure it's the difference between ten years and community service.

By way of analogy, I've defended welfare / food stamps / unemployment fraud cases.  Getting a "deferred disposition" is pretty typical:  you plead guilty, sentencing is deferred for a year, and if you meet certain conditions, you can withdraw your plea.  Often, that results in your plea to a felony being dropped to a misdemeanor.  One of the conditions is often paying restitution to the victim.

Anyway, long story short, on one case I talked the prosecutor into an outcome where my client could walk away with only a fine if he repaid something like the $14,000.00 he had defrauded.  The judge rejected the plea, saying it was too light.  Obviously, that's state rather than federal court, and every fact pattern is different, but it was very, very routine for people who had robbed the state or their employer to do jail time, even after paying the money back.

[green_bballers13]

There's a special place for people that intentionally try to take things that don't belong to them. A lesson we all learned when we were 2 years old.

I'm curious what type of community service Brett Favre will choose. I'm thinking he might coach a youth football team.

[SHAQATTACK]

I guess at some point you have to throw the book at a few people or else crooks will think it will be worth the chance of doing wrong if the punishment is light for getting busted.

[Roy H.]

I guess at some point you have to throw the book at a few people or else crooks will think it will be worth the chance of doing wrong if the punishment is light for getting busted.

Meanwhile:

Former Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Henry Ruggs III was sentenced to three to 10 years in Nevada state prison after he pleaded guilty in the fatal DUI crash that killed 23-year-old Tina Tintor.

The 24-year-old appeared in Clark County District Court on Wednesday for the sentencing hearing, which was live-streamed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He could be eligible for parole in three years.

The collision occurred on a Las Vegas street early on Nov. 2, 2021. Ruggs was leaving Topgolf near The Strip, where he had been with three other people, including his girlfriend, Kiara Je'nai Kilgo-Washington.

Police said that Ruggs was drunk driving his Corvette 156 mph before he crashed into Tintor's Toyota RAV4. The impact ruptured the gas tank, killing Tintor and her golden retriever, Max. Tintor was 23.

Ruggs' blood-alcohol content was found to be 0.16 at a hospital, twice the legal limit in Nevada. He initially faced up to 50 years for charges of DUI resulting in death, DUI resulting in substantial bodily harm, two counts of reckless driving resulting in death or substantial bodily harm and possession of a firearm while under the influence.

Three freaking years, for killing somebody while drunk-driving at 156 mph.