Oct. 09--Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett has evidently done some dumb things in her life, to put it mildly. But she's made a very smart decision to not contest the federal charges announced against her Thursday.
Her lawyer and prosecutors said Byrd-Bennett is cooperating with authorities and plans to plead guilty to charges related to the 23-count indictment alleging her participation in a bribery and kickback scheme.
In practical terms this means she'll save lots of money in legal bills and spend far less time in prison than she would have had she gone to trial, where odds are, she would have been found guilty anyway.
The U.S. attorney's office seldom loses, so "OK, ya got me!" is a better response for most defendants than "Hmm, how might I wriggle out of this?"
At all levels of the justice system, those who choose to fight charges against them risk paying what's informally known as a "trial tax" -- a longer sentence and/or steeper fine than they likely would have gotten in a plea bargain.
A vivid example is former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. If he'd had the wisdom and perspective to admit to wrongdoing after his arrest on corruption charges in December 2008, and quickly begun serving his time, he'd surely be a free man today, delivering motivational speeches about redemption and planning some sort of comeback.
Instead he fought the inevitable, chirped defiantly in the media and couldn't even bring himself to acknowledge his guilt at his sentencing hearing in late 2011 -- the best he could manage was, "I'm here convicted of crimes. The jury decided I was guilty. I am accepting of it."
So he got slammed with a startlingly long sentence that -- barring a reduction at an upcoming reassessment ordered by an appellate court -- won't see him at liberty until 2023.
Here's a prediction: Though Byrd-Bennett was nabbed nearly seven years after Blagojevich and allegedly committed crimes more brazen and more contemptible than Blagojevich's sleazy machinations, she will be the first of the two to leave prison.
On the download
My column item on the "Limetown" podcast is here.
Re: Tweets
Readers selected as the funniest tweet of the week this offering from @brandonIee: "If I got a dollar for every time I thought about you, I would start thinking about you."
My favorite of the 15 finalists, posted by @shariv67, finished fourth: "After a few days without my phone, I've learned what's really important in life. My phone."
Speaking of podcasts, "The Mincing Rascals," a WGN-plus segment in which John Williams, Steve Bertrand, Kristen McQueary and I review the week's news, has not yet cracked the iTunes top 100, so now is your chance to say you listened before it was cool to be a listener. To comment on this column go to www.chicagotribune.com/zorn and to pester me on Twitter go to @EricZorn.
