Post-racial? We're not there yet

The sentence in Story 1 was handed down a few months after Barack Obama was sworn in as the President of the United States. In Story 2-a few months before. Are there any observable and glaring differences in not only the sentences, but in the tone used by the Judges? Just asking. Ms. Harris just happens to be Black, and Ms. Gamble is white.


Story 1







Georgia Tech thief gets 10 years in prison
By STEVE VISSER

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Monday, March 16, 2009

Fulton County Superior Court Judge John Goger sentenced a former Georgia Tech employee to 20 years Monday — voicing disdain for the defendant and calling the prosecution’s suggested sentence too lenient.
Citing the “obscene amount of money she stole” and her violation of the public trust, the judge sentenced Michelle Harris to 10 years in prison and 10 years on probation for stealing more than $173,000 from the university by running up fraudulent charges on her university credit card.
Goger noted that Harris , also known as Michelle Dunbar , started stealing within six months of being hired as a program coordinator. The money came from federal and private foundation grants.
“Take her away,” Goger told deputies who took Harris to the Fulton County jail.
Harris had thrown herself on the mercy of the court. Earlier, she had balked at pleading guilty in a plea agreement, which called for her to spend three years in prison. She blamed the media spotlight on her case for her last-minute rejection of the plea deal.
On Monday, state Attorney General Thurbert Baker’s office recommended six years in prison.Harris’ attorney Clay Thompson asked the judge for leniency in part so his client could start repaying the money she stole. Goger told Thompson, who was just recently hired, that he warned Harris a year ago that she would have to have made some restitution by the time of her sentencing to get a break on prison time.
“Has she restored one nickel to Georgia Tech — just one nickel?” Goger asked Thompson .
Thompson said Harris was on the cusp of making a payment and possibly borrowing from family members.
“Is the answer no?” Goger asked.
“The answer is no,” Thompson said.


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http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/03/16/georgia_tech_pcard.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab






STORY 2





Former Georgia Tech worker gets 2.6 years for purchases
Donna Gamble admitted spending $316K with state credit card
By BILL TORPY

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

In the end, a former Georgia Tech employee who stole $316,000 with university credit cards stood mute before a federal judge as she was sentenced to 32 months in prison.
Donna Renee Gamble of Marietta was too embarrassed to talk in open court Tuesday or to even ask friends to come and speak on her behalf, said her defense attorney, Jimmy Berry . He suggested she was struck by some sort of “obsession” over a five-year period that caused her to buy things like a jet ski, a popcorn machine, a wide-screen TV, robotic vacuums, a treadmill and Auburn University football tickets.
“You just never know why,” Berry said after the brief hearing. “People get away with things and they mushroom. She did it a few times, there were no checks and balances at the school and it took off from there.
“The things they bought were for the betterment of the family,” Berry said of the 43-year-old mother of two daughters. “I guess it was something like that, she rationalized.”
U.S. District Court Judge Jack Camp cited the “frivolous nature” of her purchases before sentencing. Gamble, who worked in the Parker H. Petit Institute of Bioengineering and Bioscience, also was ordered to repay $316,000. Authorities have seized many of the items she bought with grant-funding from the National Science Foundation. The cards, called “p-cards,” are issued for state employees to buy work-related goods and services.
“I don’t see why you didn’t see it was wrong to steal $316,000 from the Georgia Institute of Technology,” Camp said before pronouncing sentence.
Neither Gamble, nor her husband Mickey , who sat with her before the hearing, spoke afterwards.
Federal prosecutor Russell Phillips called her actions “incredibly greedy, selfish and wasteful.” Gamble purchased a total of 3,800 items with 2,000 separate purchases, many of them from her computer at work, he said.
“It takes a lot of time to buy 3,800 items in 2,000 transactions,” Phillips said. “It’s much worse than if she wrote a single check for $316,000.
Gamble’s spending spree went unnoticed until August 2007 when a tipster called Georgia Tech auditors. Results of an investigation of the p-card program at the state’s 35 public colleges and universities found 18 cases of fraud, according to a report released in January by the University System of Georgia. Gamble was the only federal prosecution so far.
The state has indicted four people in other cases of alleged p-card fraud, said Russ Willard of the Attorney General’s office, noting one had pleaded guilty. He said other cases are being investigated.
Another former Tech employee, Michelle Harris , a former program coordinator in the school’s College of Management , was indicted this year and charged with using $173,000 in school money for personal expenses, including a diamond ring, laptop computers, digital cameras and making several debt payments.
Brad Douglas, the commissioner of the Department of Administrative Services, said the number of cards had been reduced from about 20,000 to 15,000. The program had grown from a small purchasing program into a more then $300 million in annual charges.



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http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/08/19/georgia_tech_sentencing.html