Essay On Robert Rizzo

870 Words2 Pages

Greed is inevitably a quality humans are unable to escape. Regardless of the time period, humans have notoriously been characterized by their greedy instincts. These greedy tendencies have plagued humans throughout history and have been prevalent within some of the most famous people of all time. Such tendencies were present in Julius Caesar, the ruthless roman general and recent bitch. However, these devilish instincts have most recently been found in criminal Robert Rizzo, mastermind behind the City of Bell Scandal. During his lengthy involvement in the scandal of the city of Bell, California, Rizzo willingly participated in fraud, over-compensation, bribery, and theft. While he was found guilty of misappropriation of public funds and was sentenced to an $8.8 million dollar fine and a twelve year prison sentence, I do not believe that Rizzo received punishment that matched the severity of his ruthless actions. (Associated Press) The punishments given to criminal Robert Rizzo did not accurately match the ruthless of his actions; his involvement with theft, bribery, and severe over-compensation should have been met with a lengthier jail sentence and a heftier fine. While Robert Rizzo is currently known nationally for his greedy persona, he was not always portrayed in this manner. Before the scandal was placed beneath the public’s eyes, Rizzo was locally known as a respectable man with humble beginnings, having been born and raised in the city of Bell, California himself. (Neuman) However, this portrayal completely changed after his malicious actions were brought into the light. When two Los Angeles Times reporters wrote an article that exposed the unnecessarily high salaries of the officials in Bell, California, investigations l... ... middle of paper ... ...d city official’s bonuses over the years. As of today, Robert Rizzo is nationally known as one of the greediest political figures in recent American history, after conducting a multimillion dollar scandal in one of the poorest cities in California, Bell. After his greedy actions were revealed in 2010, the entire city of Bell rallied together to overthrow his corrupt reign. (Neuman) They were successful in doing so by not only replacing him with a new city manager, but replaced everyone who had been linked with Rizzo’s malicious agenda. Robert Rizzo should have been more severely punished for his malicious acts and crimes against the city of Bell and its citizens. He was revealed to have stolen over $6 million dollars from the city’s treasury, been a participant in repeated bribery, and was found to have severely overcompensated himself and co-workers. (Gottlieb)

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