Earthlink Founder Gets 14 Years In Jail
from the throw-the-book-at-him dept
It's been nearly two years since the story of how an Earthlink founder, Reed Slatkin, proceeded to con people out of $600 million in a giant pyramid scheme. He told the investors (mostly Scientologists, of which he was a longtime member) that he was investing the money wisely, when really he was just using the latest investments to pay off earlier investors. Now, despite the government asking for the lower end of the jail time range following the guilty plea, the judge has sentenced him to the maximum 14 years in jail. Again, I raise the same question I raised at the time: why is it that people would give this guy so much money without doing the slightest due diligence into what he was doing with it? I also wonder what compels someone who had a huge legitimate business success to then go out and build a multi-million dollar fraud?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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proofing
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Scientology is for kooks, fanatics & idiots - why would anyone be surprised they were fleeced in the first place ?
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It's faith that usually ends up being the problem. It may or may not be OK to be uncritically faithful to your creator, but it definitely is not OK when you're dealing with people. Even if they swear up and down they believe, too.
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