Montgomery County prosecutors are pushing for tougher state penalties for financial crimes, so big-time white collar crooks such as Bernard Madoff would be punished with more than just a slap on the wrist.
Legislation in the Maryland General Assembly would allow the state to seize and sell property gained through certain financial crimes and give part of the proceeds back to victims.
“Our seizure laws right now are nonexistent for financial crimes,” said county Assistant State’s Attorney Bryan Roslund. “If [Madoff] were here, we would not be able to seize his apartment to try to pay victims back. We would not be able to seize money that he transfers to his wife to pay his victims back.”
Madoff pleaded guilty earlier this month in New York to orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme that bilked investors of billions of dollars.
The bill was unanimously approved by the Senate earlier this month; the current version of a similar House bill, which was heard Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee, would allow the state to seize property from identity thieves only.
Roslund said the state needs more tools to help victims of financial crimes recoup their money, and pointed to the case of Jean-Blaise Kikudi, a Bethesda man who was sentenced in 2006 for theft, as a local example.
Kikudi defrauded money from an elderly woman whom he met at church to buy a $230,000 town house, Roslund said.
Roslund said the state ultimately had enough leverage to force Kikudi to sell the house, but the state should have had the ability to seize the house, sell it and give the money back to the woman without Kikudi’s permission.
The state’s attorney for Montgomery County, John McCarthy, asked the state in October to increase the sentencing guidelines for thieves who steal large amounts of money.
Current law calls for a sentence of probation to six months in prison for a first-time felony theft offender, regardless of the amount stolen.
“As they stand now, the sentencing guidelines for financial crimes are of little help to the justice system,” McCarthy said in a letter to the Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy.
McCarthy suggested the state base the penalty for first-time offenders on how much money the victims lose: If the loss is between $500 and $50,000, the penalty should stay at the current level of probation to six months; if the loss is between $50,000 and $250,000, the guideline should be between probation and two years in prison; and if the loss is more than $250,000, the penalty should be a prison sentence between two and five years.
