Our penalties for white-collar crime are a joke. Last week investment broker Rhonda Breard was sentenced to 80 months in prison, just under seven years, for defrauding investors of nearly $12 million. Any amount of time in prison is nothing to laugh at, but this was not nearly a large enough penalty.
Prior to the sentencing, her attorney Ronald Friedman had hoped for a lighter sentence, around five years, so she could get out of prison before her two youngest children, ages 9 and 11, turn 18. He nearly got his wish. But do we really want someone capable of stealing people’s livelyhoods, only to satisfy her own greed, raising children in our society and teaching right and wrong? I feel for her children, but not because they won’t have her to learn from, but because their mother is a fraud.
Maybe she should have been thinking of the larger impact of her crime on the families of her victims. I am sure that the crime will work in the opposite way for her victims, as their children have to care for them into their senior years. I am sure they will get to see a lot of each other as they move in together.
Eighty months in prison is nothing compared to the severity of the crime she committed and our lawmakers need to make changes. Moreover, Judge Marsha Peckman should be ashamed of this sentence. The maximum for this type of crime is between eight and 10 years. Peckman said that Breard got the lighter sentence, in part, for cooperating with investigators. It would have been nice if Breard would have cooperated with her investors as much as the FBI.
This was not a crime that she fell into. This was not an accidental crime. This was not a little bit of negligence or a couple of mistakes that hurt people. Breard knowingly stole people’s investments over a 10-year period, a duration longer than her sentence. Let me say that again, the sentence is shorter than the duration of the crime!
There are 43 people in the area who lost money thanks to Breard’s greed, but many more that it will impact greatly. Some of the money that was taken was for college funds, forever altering the lives of her investors’ children and grandchildren. One victim is an autistic man depending on the money for his care.
During the sentencing hearing, Breard said that she planned to write a letter of apology to all the people she stole from. But she committed this crime for a decade. She used the money to finance a lavish lifestyle while knowing she was doing it at the expense of others and breaking the law. My only conclusion is that she is sorry she got caught. She is sorry that she will have limited access to her children for the next seven years. She is sorry that she will lose her three sprawling mansions – including a home for $2.6 million on Lake Washington – 27 cars, trucks, boats and recreational vehicles. She is ultimately sorry for her losses, not her investors’. She might feel remorse, but that, to me, is not the same as truly being sorry.
If she didn’t get caught she would still be doing it, not coming forward to make things right.
