Professor Elam

Friday March 1 2013

Last October  2012 we started a list of Who's the Worst. It was a list of various fraudsters that I came across in the news. One was Judge Abel Limas. Limas had been sentenced for dispensing favors for money in his court. Apparently the lawyers paying for favors were getting sentenced as well.

The list included 56 year old Ray Marchan. who up to then was a prominent Rio Grand Valley attorney. He took a cab from his home to the 100 foot high queen Isabella Causeway, and jumped to his death. He had received a 42 month sentence. he would have served it in a Federal Prison in Fort Worth, TX. I am no
expert on prisons but I suspect that would have been relatively safe and secure. 

But apparently the revelation of who he had become was more than he could handle.  We all have a self image. A fall from grace like this forces a hard look in the mirror. He might have re-invented himself in prison, ala Charles Colson who went on to found a prison ministry. But apparently this was not to be. 

We are studying ethics in ACCT 5308. This is another sad story of choosing the Dark Side of the Force.