The Rich Are Different: Beanie Baby Billionaire Won’t Get Jail For Tax Evasion

Jail is, of course, for low-level minority marijuana dealers. That’s just the way it works when you’re super-rich and a crook:

The billionaire businessman behind Beanie Babies was sentenced Tuesday to two years of probation, but no prison time, for not paying taxes on millions of dollars stashed in Swiss bank accounts, with the judge praising the toy magnate for his charity work.

H. Ty Warner, 69, issued a somber but composed apology before being sentenced in Chicago federal court, saying he felt “shame and embarrassment.” He pleaded guilty last year to a single count of tax evasion for not paying taxes on $25 million in income he had hidden.

Warren could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison, and a prosecutor asked U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras on Tuesday to impose at least a year behind bars. But Kocoras opted against prison time and spent most of the 20 minutes he spent explaining his sentence praising the businessman’s charitable work. He cited a $20,000 medical bill Warner paid for a stranger with a kidney ailment and Warner’s $20 million charitable donation of proceeds from a toy he helped design commemorating Princess Diana after her death.

“I find Mr. Warner to be a very unique individual … in his service and kindness to mankind,” Kocoras said in explaining his decision to forgo prison time. “Society will be better served by allowing him to continue his good works,” he said, noting that Warner had already paid a price in “public humiliation” and “private torment.”

So he can’t do charity work from behind bars? Martha Stewart did…

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.