For the curious, this is factual, not just true. Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/homeless-man-vs-corporate-thief/
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/homeless-man-vs-corporate-thief/
It's true, but note that Allan received a reduced sentence for testifying against the actual mastermind of the fraud, who got 30 years.
Twice as long as the homeless man, yes.
The difference in dollars and impact though, and considering who turned themselves in... It's still an egregious sentence for $100.
It wasn't the amount - It was the "who" that the homeless person robbed. He didn't steal from a local liquor store or 7/11. He robbed from a bank. And bank robbery, since the time there have been banks to rob from, has always carried certain heavy punishments. And the punishments are well known to even a homeless person. And very often the judge gets no choice or leeway in the sentencing.
And TB&W also stole from banks through fraud.
The judge isn't the issue being called out, the laws and associated punishments are.
So.. yes. And my point stands.
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you can't easily or directly compare the monetary value of violent vs non-violent crime. Robbery is not about the money from a severity perspective. Any robbery will be much more heavily punished than a theft of the same monetary value due to the violence or threat of violence agaist the person or people.
If you stick a gun in someones face and ask them for one cent, you still should be going to jail for a decent amount of time - way more than shoplifting a 500 dollar tv.
15 years does seem a lot though, you might have expected them to at least wave the weapon around, or put it direct to someones head, or put a knife to the throat - that doesn't seem to be the case here. but if it were less than 5 , I'd think they'd got off lightly for robbery.
The homeless guy should have shoplifted food from grocery store - not gone and threatened someones life.
That's certainly quite the interpretation of what happened when Roy Brown went into the bank, said "this is a stickup" with no weapon, was handed three stacks of bills, took a single $100 bill, handed the rest back and said "Sorry, I'm homeless".
In other words, not remotely what you described.
Goodbye.
“Let’s see Paul Allen’s sentence.”
his subtle off-white colouring got him a lighter sentence
It is whom your stealing from. Madoff for instance robbed the wrong people, should've robbed proletarians.
Homeless guy shoulda stolen $3b instead of just $100 🤷🏻♂️
Tbf, sounds kinda like the homeless man wanted to get caught, maybe for the free rent.
You are showing your innocence.
Right. Even if we assume that's the case it only explains one guy getting a harsh sentence. It doesn't explain the guy with a way harsher crime not getting a harsh sentence.
Think of it this way. If the other guy had robbed the bank empty, just for the sake of the argument he stole 3 billion, and he didn't turn himself out do you think he should've gotten 40 months?
The first time I saw this picture, I was in middle school. It may well have been my first introduction to politics and started me down the path of leftism in general. Over a decade later and nothing's changed.
End Stage Capitalism: "Laws for thee (the poor), not for me (the wealthy)."
That's regular Capitalism, end-stage is when Capitalism reaches out internationally to dominate less developed countries with predatory loans (like from the IMF) and exporting Capital to produce goods for far lower wages than you would domestically.
Are you trying to imply that the US doesn't already do this? They've overthrown democratically elected governments all over the latin americas (and other places, like hawaii) and imposed more fascist ones for access to their raw materials. Sure it's not exactly using loans to do that, but the real end-game is fascism anyways once markets are fully saturated and there are no more ways to generate capital.
Are you trying to imply that the US doesn't already do this?
No, the exact opposite. We are at End-Stage Capitalism, there's not much left for it to go.
Let's see him get a reservation at the Dorsia now, the stupid fucking bastard.
Lore accurate Paul Allen
While a 15 year sentence is definitely too high, it's important to acknowledge that there is a difference between a bank robbery and fraud.
Yeah, the difference is one's an honest, victimless crime.
Neither of the crimes is honest nor victimless.
homeless man
He honestly needed money
banks make their money by preying on the poor, and are insured against theft
Victimless
I think the issue with the homeless guys it was possible armed robbery and he probably had priors, so its not an insanely long sentence for what he did.
Someone posted the snopes. It calls into question a bunch of assumptions you're making.
Calling things into question doesnt mean much. Stories like these 99% of the time are misleading.