Alan Bond and 50 million years jail

He was our national hero, an entrepreneur who strutted the world stage, who mesmerised all with that Grand Canyon of a smile ... Medical experts were procured to testify that Bond was a brain-dead ignoramus who could not take the stand ... A couple of days before he was released after less than four years' jail for a fraud involving $1.2 billion, a Northern Territory man was sentenced to one year's jail for stealing $23 worth of cordial and biscuits. Had the same formula been applied to Bond, he would have been in jail for 50 million years.
Sydney Morning Herald, October 7, 2000, on Alan Bond, disgraced Australian businessman, born on April 22, 1938

1938 Alan Bond, crooked Australian businessman, one-time billionaire whose business empire came unstuck after his 1987 purchase of Vincent van Gogh's Blue Irises for $49 million. Bond served less than four years in prison for various corporate crimes and was bankrupted, with no noticeable deleterious effects to his famously opulent lifestyle ...

Tagged: australia, corporations, crime