Crime Doesn't Pay -- And Justice Doesn't Collect

For every buck in federal fines and restitution criminals are ordered to pay -- the Justice Department lets 96 cents slide. And almost two-thirds of that is from white-collar crime.

A new audit shows Uncle Sam's been stiffed to the tune of $25 billion -- money criminals were supposed to pay the Justice Department. That's double the amount an audit three years ago turned up.

The Government Accountability Office did both of those audits. They gave the Justice Department some grief for not following up on GAO reccomendations back in 2001. The GAO gave Justice 13 plans to fix the criminal collection problem in their 2001 report. This time, they found DoJ had followed only 7 of them.

White Collar Crime

The GAO looked at five specific cases of white collar crime where convicts were supposed to pay restitution to their victims. The restitution totaled $568 million. Only 7% of the ordered restitution was ever paid. The report says all five cases had a common trait:

"At some point prior to the judgments establishing the restitution debts, each of the five offenders either reported having wealth or significant financial resources to the courts or to Justice, or there were indicators of such. However, following the judgments, the offenders claimed that they were not financially able to pay full restitution to their victims."

Pennies in Punishment

Sen Byron Dorgan (D-ND) ordered the report. He says the Justice Department collects only four cents on the dollar in federal fines and orders to pay restitution.

Four cents. That's chump change. Guess who's the chump. (MSNBC/GAO)

[Crossposted at BlogCritics.org]