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Samsung Billionaire Gets Off Easy (gizmodo.com)
Lee Jae-yong, the Samsung chief found guilty of bribery and embezzlement, was freed from prison after an appeals court reduced and suspended his five-year prison sentence. Gizmodo reports: Lee had pleaded not guilty to all charges and spent nearly a year in jail, CNN reported, before the appeals court reduced his sentence to two and a half years and suspended it for four. The court reportedly found him guilty of one bribery charge, but not of hiding money offshore. It also overturned another bribery charge. It's important to understand that Samsung has a tight grip on the country's economy. Known as a "chaebol," or a (usually family-owned) business conglomerate, Samsung contributes to a little over one-fifth of the country's exports. Its businesses make up about 15 percent of the country's total economy. It is extremely rare for leaders of the country's chaebols to be justly punished for their crimes --
most convicted are ultimately pardoned or granted a commutation. Lee's father, Lee Kun-hee, has been pardoned twice for similar charges.
You're missing something important though. Ask yourself what all of those four rich people have in common and the answer is that their crimes were largely against other rich people. The aristocracy will always overlook the behavior of their peers towards the peasantry, but not the transgressions against their own. But even then the punishments are mild. No one was getting sent to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Meanwhile Trump committed many, many instances of fraud against lower class people who fell for the Trump University scam. He wound up paying out over $25 million to settle lawsuits, but he did not go to jail.
Wells Fargo committed millions of acts of fraud against lower class people and nobody went to jail.
The subprime mortgage industry participated millions facts of fraud and nobody went to jail. In fact, the lower class tax payers were forced to bail them out to make sure they didn't even have to go bankrupt.
Funny how that works. Screw over poor people and maybe you pay a fine which is less than what you gained or maybe you get handed a bunch of money to keep you from going bankrupt. Screw over someone wealthy, however, and you go to jail.