Analogies weak all around I think
"maybe--she just...stole...a loaf of bread...twenty years ago. But Todd wants her jailed."
Hmmm. I had a college roomie my last year who had a wife a year older than him and a couple babies. She graduated one year earlier and moved 80 miles away to the big city. Buddy lived in our house during school week and drove up to the city to be with her on weekends. Buddy was a physics major who got into EMI hardening in a big way on a summer internship and had a standing job offer waiting when he finished his BS.
Buddy came up against the instructor from hell in a sorry assed one credit class and flunked it. No diploma. Much effort was made to try to work something out since he needed to get working and get with his wife and kids. Prof was unreasonable and unyielding (and thus, karmaically died in a car accident 2 years later).
Meanwhile, Buddy gets a call from his company and they say "so are you ready to get to work"? He says "yes". OK, its an entry level job and there's your stolen loaf of bread. Buddy gets pretty good at his specialty (and its a tiny niche) and starts doing original research - publishes a few papers in scientific journals - and even goes back to the university to try to work out a deal to get that one credit out of the way via submitting original research papers or something. The U won't deal. They insist he quit his job, move 80 miles south, and do the class for a semester. They won't take a transfer credit from the state university near where he works, nor will they let him do a project. "Fuck em" he says.
Buddy switches jobs 18 months later using his current resume, and published papers as credentials, then comes clean a couple weeks after he starts work and forever strikes the name of his university from his resume/bio. End of theft. '
I can sort of forgive this one because it was entry level, there is a desperation quotient, and it was rectified before he moved to any position of authority.
OTOH, advanced degree fraud I have a much harder time with. By using a fake advanced degree to gain a senior position she's not just stealing a loaf of bread, she's continually depriving a village of food for the sake of greed.
The punishment should be proportional to the spoils.
Of course, its inversely proportional these days. Steal a slice of pizza and get 20 years, do a white collar crime embezzling millions and get 18 months. But that's another topic.
