Rudy Kurniawan is a rare wine dealer who was convicted of defrauding his billionaire clients by pouring cheap wine into faked-up bottles and pawning them off as rare vintages. Yesterday he was sentenced to 10 years in prison despite his attorney’s plea for leniency:
“Nobody died,” Mr. Mooney said. “Nobody lost their job. Nobody lost their savings.”
Judge Richard M. Berman interrupted him to ask, “Is the principle that if you’re rich, then the person who did the defrauding shouldn’t be punished?”
Stanley J. Okula Jr., a federal prosecutor, said it was “quite shocking” that Mr. Mooney was arguing for a different standard for those who have defrauded rich people. “Fraud is fraud,” he said. “There is no distinction in the guidelines, or in logic, for treating it differently.”
Quite right. As we all know, the law treats the rich and the poor equally. And the rich especially equally.
