Other, Criminal Justice Essay Sample

Scenario 1

In the first scenario, the charge was on fraudulent, bribes, and kickback payments. Further, there was a claim of issuance of the contract to particularly favored individuals. On all four accounts, the four suspects brought to the stand were found guilty of the criminal offenses. The program manager at the Army Corps and his colleague the program director, (Defendant A and B respectively) were charged on accounts of conspiracy to funnel payment of more than fifty million dollars to a subcontractor.
The evidence brought forth to the court was that the business was the major servicer of an unknown delivery, which was the contract for information technology setup and services. Further, the evidence produced showed that about twenty-five million dollar fraudulent costs were fabricated into the bill. Additionally, it was proved beyond reasonable doubt that the payments on these expenses went to program manager and his son, the program director, and the director of the contracted business. The accusation also indicated that the four individuals planned a similar incidence on a future IT contract. The incidence was said to involve eight hundred million dollars, which they were to get by altering the statement of work and objectives thus favoring the same subcontractor. Additionally, they were to use other army corps employees by planting them in strategic positions in support of the subcontract’s selection with the board.
The court found them guilty and all four were charged with counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, and bribery. Consequently, the role played by Defendant A and B, meant they are prosecuted on receipt of the bribe by a public official. At the same time, Defendant B was also found guilty of unlawful kickbacks.
In this case, both defendants A and B are Public officers; the case automatically shifts to the public corruption ground. One would say that their defendant A and B’s fraudulent behavior was on misuse of office as well as bribery. However, their misconduct would fall under many fraudulent behaviors, including theft and falsification of company records. In this case, Defendant A and B under the bribery of public officials and witnesses Act 201 (a) paragraph (1) and (2) broke the law (Associates & Brown, 2015). The penalty in which vary with different states, however, in most cases, the officials were to be fined or imprisoned. For instance, in Alabama, when a public officer is found in corrupt deals he or she is said to have violated a Class C felony. For this reason, the individual is to be given a maximum imprisonment of 1 to 10 years or a maximum fine of fifteen thousand dollars. In Alaska, a maximum imprisonment of 10 years or a maximum fine of one hundred thousand penalizes the same case. On unlawful kickback accusations, Act 51, expanded the definition of prohibited conduct thus incorporating the public officer phrase involved in subcontracting (criminal resource, n.d). However, for a case of such accusations, the prosecutor must establish; the prohibited conduct, the purpose of the kickbacks, the type of contract, among other things (Associates & Brown, 2015).
Money laundering, on the other hand, an individual can only be pardoned if they can show that they followed all the HMRC (HM Revenue & Customs). However, in this case, one would say that it is beyond doubt that the four individuals did commit money-laundering offenses. Penalties imposed for the offense takes into account; the seriousness of the offense; the amount of money involved; reasons for, not complying and the history; and the size of the business.
Crimes of bribery have very few defenses available to them. For instance, the accused would have contended that not all evidence provided was sufficiently proved. For the director of the small business, he would have as well as stated that he was coerced into the act. For this reason, the court would not treat him as a party to the crime. In Defendant A and his son and defendant B, they would argue that they were entrapped into taking a bride. However, most courts refuse the entrapment argument in bribery cases.

Scenario 2: embezzlement

After the investigations found the embezzlement offense by the bank manager, who pleaded guilty to the charges and the proof given to the police by the victims, out rightly, it is evident enough to prosecute. It would be for this reason right to state that the bank manager’s fraudulent behavior was simple theft and misuse of assets, which led to the individual violating the state and federal laws.
As per the evidence provided, the accused embezzled the funds to buy herself drugs that she was addicted to, for this reason; the organization is not liable for the misconduct of their employee’s behavior. Consequently, the notion of economic motivations as a reason for the act such as a recession does not apply or stand ground. Statistically, it is estimated that annually, embezzlement is recorded at 20-90 billion dollars, thus indicating that the theft by employees compared to the nation's type 1 index crime, is three times more costly (Huff, 2009). However, not all embezzlement cases come to the public eye because, in most cases, they taint a company in with a wrong image, for this reason, most companies resolve to handle the behavior internally. On reducing the embezzlement by employees, organizations have started using discouragement and apprehension strategies by increasing the penalty for people found in theft cases (Huff, 2009).
In the case of scenario 2, the case can be seen in court as an embezzlement that will, thus, handle is as a federal crime. Embezzlement is a kind theft that follows an individual given the authority to manage or monitor another person’s property or money, stealing part of it for his or her personal gain. The federal law charges the offense because the individual stole from the bank’s customers, which is her employer. In other states, the embezzlement case may overlap to a state crime while, in others, it is purely a federal crime (Steiner, 2015). The penalties for this crime fall under the theft by a bank examiner, which at this level the punishment is on the basis if the individual stole more than 1,000 dollars or less. In scenario 2, it is recorded that the individual stole over 1,000 dollars, for this reason the bank managers penalty includes 250,000 dollars fine to 5 years in prison (Steiner, 2015). Additionally, the individual will be permanently ineligible to hold any position in a bank. Given the evidence of the crime, and the reason the individual gave for committing the crime, the crime is federal bound and lacks a defense for it thus left for the federal judges to make a ruling.

References

Associates & Brown. (2015). Tax Fraud Retrieved from http://www.irstaxattorney.com/tax-fraud/tax_fraud.html
Criminal Resource Manual 927 Anti-Kickback Act of 1986. Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00927.htm
FBI, (2015). Financial Crimes Report 2010-2011. Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011
Huff, R. (2009) National white-collar center: white paper. Research section, 1000 Technology Drive, suite.
Steiner, M. (2015). Federal Embezzlement Laws & Criminal Penalties: Criminal Law. Retrieved from http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defense/criminal-offense/federal-embezzlement-laws.htm