Crime and Punishment

When one has a past profession and a new one, there is the opportunity for those worlds to collide.  And so it has happened.  My decades as a professor of criminology have met my current world as a nonprofit executive.  But the cause for the intersection is nothing to celebrate.  

In the aftermath of a criminal conviction, as the judge is weighing sentencing options, victims, their family and friends, are allowed to testify or have statements read about the impact of the crime on the victim.  If such testimony had been allowed in the sentencing phases for Vincent Fumo and Ruth Arnao, I would have lined up to testify.  Having heard of the stupefyingly lenient sentence Fumo received—55 months, not even five years!—I would have been near belligerent at Arnao’s sentencing hearing.   

But clearly, I would not have had an impact, as she got one year and a day for being found guilty of not one, not two, but 45 counts of misconduct ranging from fraud and conspiracy to obstructing justice and destroying property sought as part of an FBI investigation.  She will, most likely, serve even less time than this extremely light sentence.  When a judge allows for that great a deviation from the recommendations of sentencing guidelines (which had her facing 9 to 11 years), it would seem nothing would have swayed him. 

Nonetheless, perhaps there are other judges out there reading this who can learn from their colleague’s mistake.  Should they find themselves deciding the fate of a nonprofit leader who has violated the public trust, bludgeoned the credibility of the sector; if so, I would hope that they would not dismiss the dregs of the nonprofit sector as the insignificant step-sibling of the almighty for-profit world, the world that matters as opposed to the world that is, after all, “just”
a charity. And here is what I would tell them. 

First, I would point out that the harm Arnao has done goes well beyond the constituents her nonprofit organization had promised to serve, as that nonprofit is on the verge of closing its doors.  But the harm redounds to the nonprofit sector as a whole.  Arnao trampled on the public’s trust, scammed donors into believing their dollars were going for public good when, in fact, they were going for Fumo and Arnao good.  She has added one more blaring headline that the anti-charity folk use in their harangues about nonprofits as tax-free excuses for personal agenda.  And since we don’t get the blaring headlines touting all the good 99% of the sector does, headline readers have no information to counter their thinking.

 Second, I absolutely would have decried—and laughed—at the shameless suggestion of the defense that Arnao was unable to resist Fumo’s charisma!  Give me a break!  The criminal defense of PMS syndrome, a syndrome that has far more medical evidence to back it up than being putty in another’s hands, was eventually allowed in only a handful of jurisdictions around this country.  I couldn’t resist his charm?  Come on!  No wonder lawyers have been sinking in the annual survey that ranks professions by the amount of respect they garner.  (In the most recent Harris poll on the prestige of professionals, only 26% of Americans surveyed said lawyers have “very great prestige.”)  Make it up as we go along just adds another brush stroke to the image of nonprofits leaders as spinners of truth in order to take other peoples’ money to do with what they really want.  And unfortunately, this (mis)perception is all too commonly held. 

And third, I would have explained to the judge, as he should intimately understand, that there are certain professions which we do and should hold to a higher standard of conduct:  police officers, judges and, I would put here leaders of nonprofit organizations.  For each of these professions, the ability to be successful at the job depends upon maintaining the public’s trust.  A police force that has abused the public’s trust will not be effective.  A judge who has trampled on the public’s trust will have all subsequent decisions ridiculed and will be spurned by lawyers seeking a fair hearing.  And nonprofit leaders who violate their promise of protecting the public’s trust take their nonprofits—and all the good they could and should be doing—with them.  The ripple effect in each of these scenarios goes well beyond the immediate situation. 

Arnao was sentenced to eight days per criminal count; she’ll probably end up serving about seven for each count, provided no one else casts a spell upon her causing her to do evil deeds while incarcerated.  Yet the consequences of her actions have harmed the lives of hundreds, if not thousands and the damage to the nonprofit community, and the public’s faith in it, will continue long after they’ve served their time.