Corporate crime unpunished

Dear editor:

Once again corporate crime goes unpunished, unless you can count paying back one-third of what you stole while not having to admit guilt a punishment? That would be like me going into a bank and stealing $3 million, getting caught by the police, then making a deal with the DA to give back $1 million, admit no guilt and walk free. I don’t consider that equal justice under the law.

Mylan, the drug company who so famously jacked up the cost of the Epi Pen for the delivery of insulin within this past year by around 400 percent was accused of overcharging consumers $1.2 billion, yet they were only fined $465 million and not required to admit any guilt. This was just fine with Department of Health and Human Services Director Tom Price.

The message being sent to these criminal corporations is that it’s OK to rip off the American people, just don’t get caught, but if you do, don’t worry, cause we’ve got your back. We’ve done that with Wall Street bankers who stole upward of $13 trillion from the people after the 2008 crash they caused through their greed, while people were left to fend for themselves and then they had the audacity of accusing the victims of causing their problems?

Doesn’t seem to matter these days who’s in the White House, but does matter who’s doing the governing via Congress. With a series of disastrous Supreme Court decisions dating all the way back to the early 1800s legalizing political bribery, the corporations have now seized control of the U.S. government and we’re just all fair game courtesy of the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court. Judith Zitko Hot Springs Village