Lately the newspapers are full of stories about lawyers and politicians being taken away to jail, not to mention movie "stars" and other folks who ought to know better. After posting my note earlier this week about a lawyer I know who is going to jail, I learned of another one, this one a guy I knew as a fellow student in law school.
He was the quiet type in law school. Like me, he didn't raise his hand much and didn't seem particularly outspoken about anything. After law school, he surprised me and I suspect a lot of our classmates by his success, first as a lawyer in private practice and then as a state senator, a county commissioner, a state prosecutor, and finally as Sheriff of Broward County.
This week he resigned and then entered a guilty plea in federal court to charges arising from some petty transactions involving a land developer. Failure to report, failure to pay taxes . . . you've seen this story before. His story reminds me of the old "joke" about stealing money. If you are going to steal, don't steal the petty cash fund. Steal a huge amount and then flee to a country that won't allow your extradition back to the U.S.
In his case, as in so many others, I just don't get it. He had no doubt where his next meal or the next payment on his Mercedes was coming from. Now he is at risk of losing a state pension worth more per year than what I'm getting paid and I'm still working for a living. He is also en route to federal prison.
Working for a living. That pretty much sums it up. Some of us do, and some of us are looking for the easy way out.
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