I am not an attorney. So, as directed by counsel advising me in a 1st amendment suit I evaluated filing, DISCLAIMER language always “fronts” my presentation documents:
[These opinions, observations and examples are based upon Jim Wanserski’s acquired knowledge gained from: his fraud-uncovering experiences; project consulting work; direct testimony (public information), evidence preparation, and exhibits developed or offered in a number of those cases.]
It applies here too.
A personal pet peeve is the susceptibility of people from the likes of administrators, university professors—especially “ethics” ones, even former FBI agents, accounting and investigative organizations, who just seem to liberally desire and then place “perps on the podium.” Numerous speakers’ bureaus and stables for “get your fraud expert-speaker here” drone on incessantly from the sidelines, in print and promotion, about such fare. Sadly, a number of perps get to do their diatribe on the dais, and get paid for it too. I’ve long-labeled this as simply a misguided version of American idol. After all, what can we learn from the perp(s)? If they were “the smartest people in the room,” why’d they get caught?
AUDACITY knows no bounds.
To wit, example #1: note that the anointed “poster-boy” of the HealthSouth healthcare fraud is back in the news: (acquitted of criminal charges in the HealthSouth fraud case but found liable in a civil trial — see the link: http://www.bizjournals.com/birmingham/blog/2013/05/scrushy-wants-back-in-health-care-biz.html?ana=e_du_pub&s=article_du&ed=2013-05-10&u=kgSEhLuccYSm/NoFF2uEM6M69Oy)
As the link’s piece indicates, Scrushy has now petitioned a judge to lift the ban precluding him from serving as an officer or director for a public company, part of a settlement with The SEC.
How soon till we see him on the podium?
Two-wit, example #2: Who can forget renowned “perp” Barry Minkow of ZZZZ Best and his phony carpet-cleaning company-fame, sentenced to 25 years in prison, serving about 7 ½ years. He then “emerged from prison as a Christian pastor and launched his new career, arguing that it takes a fraudster to know one” (WSJ-April 5, 2011). Within a few years of the initial prison release, and doing misdeeds once again according to Marquet International’s White Collar Rogues Gallery, “Minkow was sentenced to 5 years in prison and ordered to pay $583 million in damages to (company) Lennar.”
The list of examples goes on and on and on…perps doing deeds, getting out, finding “sponsors,” and then getting paid to impart to audiences “lessons of vital import.” Oh, and don’t forget their books, how-to or otherwise, that they offer as well. Perhaps such bureaus, associations, accounting, investigative, and “ethics” organizations ought to face facts. Could this simply be fraud foisted again, via another medium?
“Hope springs eternal” is inappropriate as a lesson audiences should be submitted to from the podium, and certainly not from “perps posing as preachers.” Might administrators best recall: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”? Let’s call it what it is—naïve inanity (but I repeat myself)!
Should not the reaction be: “You’re putting WHO on the podium, to talk about what? Are you kidding me?
That’s simply AUDACITY — hopelessly devoted.