I'm not so sure. It is obviously fraud, and couldn't appear not to be that way for the perpetrators.

So if they only face fines it makes sense for them to weigh up the potential gains against losses - and its not just flat cash.

On top of that bear in mind that high sales figures will allow them to grow faster - you can't fine growth very easily.

Lots of non-violent people go to jail for marijuana use as an example... Lots of violent destructive people never see jail -- you know the kind of people that forcefully take homes and money from people with the help of the sheriff because they knowingly sold homes to them that they couldn't afford..

This is the worst argument, though, if your point is to argue that these people ought to be in prison. Many non-violent crimes that people go to jail for are activities which should never have been made into crimes in the first place.

And if you extend this out, you start to wonder just how many non-violent crimes ought to be punishable with prison. The shoplifting example, for instance, might be something that should only be a civil penalty rather than criminal, as long as it isn't armed robbery.

It's hard to know where to draw the line, but if you want these people to go to prison, then don't highlight crimes that the majority of Americans now think shouldn't be crimes.

I'd agree if it was just defrauding investors (assuming they valued the company based on this and had no knowledge of it) or the stores (assuming there were contracts forbidding it). But they also screwed their employees by paying out the expenses as salary. Personally I'm a bit less forgiving when it comes to employers defrauding employees. The power disparity and all.

I'm willing to bet you'd put a shoplifter in prison for stealing a computer. This type of fraud is a much bigger theft.

Defrauding investors is a serious crime. Think of the widows and orphans and their pension funds. :-)