Rigas Gang Gets Hard Time

June 2005 is turning out to be a good month for punishing criminal businessmen. Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, both formerly of Tyco, got nice long jail terms last week. This week, the Rigas father and son team who bankrupted cable provider Adelphia got 15 and twenty years each. One looks forward to the Enron trials.

The Rigas story is going to be kicked around a while. The issue at hand is the age of John Rigas, who at 80, has been given 15 years in prison for 18 counts of fraud and conspiracy. Many will argue that his age and health should mitigate this harsh sentence. He has heart trouble and bladder cancer. And mercy is probably in order, but since the prosecution asked for 215-years for both John Rigas and his son Timothy, 15 years might just be merciful. US District Court Judge Leonard Sand said that the elder Rigas could have his sentence altered after 2 years in the event that the Federal Bureau of Prisons determines he has less than 3 months to live. As for Timothy Rigas, who is 49, the court gave him 18 years.

These may seem harsh penalties for men who did their stealing from the boardroom of a corporation. But the damage they caused to society and harm to their shareholders is probably more enduring than anything bank robber Willie Sutton ever did. They were found guilty of conspiring to hid $2.3 billion in Adelphia debt, of taking $100 million to which they were not entitled, and lying about the condition of the company’s finances. They used the money to build themselves golf courses, condos and to pay off personal investment losses. And the jury convicted them on 18 of 23 counts. These men stole money from investors and did so on such a colossal scale that the fifth largest cable company in America couldn’t survive their plundering.

John Rigas, before being sentenced, said to the court, “In my heart and in my conscience, I’ll go to my grave really and truly believing that I did nothing but try to improve the conditions of my employees. He added, “If I did anything wrong, I apologize,” he said. His lawyer, Peter Fleming, added kind words about the elder Rigas’ philanthropy and his love of the town where Adelphia grew up, Coudersport, Pennsylvania.

Judge Sand wasn’t buying the sweet grandfather routine, interjecting, “Do you see what he did? What he did to Coudersport, what he did with assets and by means which were not appropriately his? To be a great philanthropist with other people’s money really is not very persuasive.” Amen.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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