Is this fair?...

You have some point in there. I think the punishment was pretty much harsh compared to some more notorious criminals that are sentenced lighter than the one you mentioned. I agree sentencing a man who takes advantage of technical flaws a machine has committed in the first place. Well if it was a human being who did commit that I guess the teller would have been fired and is in jail with the man who committed it.

I do not deny that he did a crime. But the punishment coukd have been less. tghere are murderers,rapists etc who get less punishment.

wow... that is a tad harsh for embezzlement, don't you think? Even killing gets a lesser sentence than that. Sigh... such is the system where we live in. If the judge is not able to make judgment, why is there a need for one in the first place? They are all very highly paid, yet they do not know how to manage the punishment accordingly? Sigh... what is the world coming to?

I don't think it is fair. I think sentencing him to be in jail for 5 years is already enough. He is just greedy. And I think everybody is greedy if there is such a chance. He doesn't harm anybody and he doesn't spoil the ATM. There are many officials take away a lot of money, but they haven't received any serious punishment. So this is not fair at all.

Although the criminal activity is not so serious as the murderdrs,arsonist,rapist,this is also a criminality .The crime should be punished ,or they would be unscrupulous.Yeah,this is much more serious,but you know how can we say the fair thing .If you have money that everything will be easier,or you know what will happen.I think the sociey is unfair.

Hey aseretdd, I agree with you. I, too, feel that the punishment just for stealing money is too harsh. He should, of course, get some punishment but not this harsh one. The court is just too unfair. I am too upset to hear this. This kind of harsh punishment is for those murderers, arsonists and rapists. NOT FAIR AT ALL!!!

I definitely agree that this is much too harsh of a punishment. For one thing, it is not that serious. For another thing, I can not think of anyone who would not at least be tempted. Although, I personally would probably feel like I was being set up. ATM machines malfunction, but that is just a little bit out of the ordinary for a ATM to just start spitting out his money and money from another source also. But, he does deserve to do some hard time.

The length of the punishment is absurd, however, I definately think he should be punished with some jail time - stealing is stealing. He should have notified the bank when he noticed the ATM was malfunctioning.

no not really....

It is not right to steal - from as poor man or from a rich bank.

He committed a crime and he just kept on running instead of giving himself in like the other guy did. I guess its because he ran away and evaded arrest but still they could have been more lenient. The Courts do have a hard taks to do from day to day but I do believe that they too take things too much to the extrme. Since the other guy got ayear they could have given him 2 or 3 years because he evaded the authorities but life is too hard to swallow.

It doesn't seem fair. At the same time there are lots of unfair situations that happen in this world. Most of life is unfair. But I would much rather have a petty thief (after all he did steal) walking around then an armed robber, a murderer, an arsonist, or a rapist out on the streets.

this really is too much for a punishment. he stole but still this is too much for him to pay back.

thats a bit unfair yes they should get a sentence but not life perhaps one or two years!