> He is charged with four counts of larceny over $250, eight counts of identity fraud, seven counts of falsifying an endorsement or approval and pretending to hold a degree.
Whenever I see these articles, I always picture some huffy duff in a suit turning red because he was fooled, so in retaliation he throws numerous baseless charges at the fraudster in addition to the ones that are based on something in some sort of legal temper tantrum. Shouldn't he just have a number of counts of fraud rather than, "as many charges as we can pile on and make stick?"
Usually this is done when there's some doubt about which charges will stick -- you throw everything you've got and take whatever the jury gives you, or more likely you plea bargain down to a less serious charge.
What happened here in the charging is that the prosecutor realized the guy had a pattern of just moving on and committing fraud again each time he was caught in a nonjudicial college disciplinary process. The guy needs to understand the gravity of his wrong-doing.
Couldn't that be done via one actual criminal prosecution? It seems like they're basically trying to charge him with 15 variations of the same crime, instead of just charging him with that crime once. I guess that's not uncommon, but still feels weird to me.
> The guy needs to understand the gravity of his wrong-doing.
Isn't that why the punishment is supposed to fit the crime? Rather than 'charge him with a million things and hopefully scare him into a plead bargain.' That's not the way that the law is supposed to work.
Whenever I see these articles, I always picture some huffy duff in a suit turning red because he was fooled, so in retaliation he throws numerous baseless charges at the fraudster in addition to the ones that are based on something in some sort of legal temper tantrum. Shouldn't he just have a number of counts of fraud rather than, "as many charges as we can pile on and make stick?"