Back in 2012, Ryan Tate began an employee staff meeting at Tate Publishing with the following bible lesson:
"Proverbs said the wicked will set a trap, but the righteous will prevail and the wicked will fall into their own trap."
Give Ryan some credit. He's a master in the art of foreshadowing!
Yesterday afternoon, the righteous prevailed when news broke that Ryan Tate and his dad Richard Tate – the lying, stealing, cheating conmen behind the Tate Publishing ponzi scheme scam – entered no contest pleas to a wide variety of crimes.
Via NewsOK.com:
Canadian County District Judge Paul Hesse accepted no contest pleas from business founder Richard Tate, 71, and his son and former CEO, Ryan Tate, 40, on charges including 44 counts involving embezzlement, attempted extortion, extortion, conspiracy and racketeering.
The charges were based on complaints former customers of the vanity publishing house had filed with the Oklahoma Attorney General's consumer protection unit. Customers accused the two men of not providing services they had paid for.
Well, that's putting it mildly.
Ever since that meeting where Ryan chastised, insulted and lied to his employees before firing them, our coverage of the Tate's has turned The Lost Ogle into an online therapy center for former Tate Publishing employees and authors to vent and complain about their awful experiences. To this day, I still get sad and depressing emails from people all across the country (and the Philippines) who were led on, lied to, and screwed over by the Tate's. For them, this must be a very special day.
On that note, what type of prison sentence did Attorney General Mike Hunter give to these two lying, cheating, disgusting, sacrilegious scumbuckets who used their Christian faith as a weapon to scam people out of money?
Here's your answer:
Both men were sentenced to consecutive, 10-year suspended terms on two of the felony charges, concurrent five-year suspended terms on the remaining felonies and concurrent yearlong suspended terms on the misdemeanors.
Each will be on probation the next 20 years and must meet prescribed conduct standards and report monthly to the attorney general. They also must reimburse the victims of their scam.
To date, prosecutors said the company owes cheated clients at least $825,895, and the plea agreement the two men made Wednesday required them to pay the Oklahoma attorney general $109,000 on Wednesday. They also are jointly responsible for making a monthly payment of $3,000 for the next 20 years.
WHAT THE FLIPPITY DIPPITY FUCK?! They got off without any sort of jail time??! I'm all for criminal justice reform and reduced sentencing, but that's for victimless crimes! These guys literally stole from hundreds, if not thousands of people. There are victims from the redwood forest to the gulf stream and Philippine waters. How does our Attorney General justify that?
At a Wednesday news conference, Attorney General Mike Hunter said his office is in the process of setting up a restitution fund for former customers who have shown they lost money, noting his office would be contacting those people before long.
Hunter also acknowledged some victims might have wanted the Tates to spend time behind bars.
But Hunter said his goal from the start was to restore lost funds to the vanity publisher's jilted customers. He thanked former customers for being patient.
That's just ridiculous. Oklahoma is literally the incarceration capital of the world. We lock people up for petty things like smoking marijuana or shoplifting, yet these two con men who pled no contest to 44 serious crimes that would land anyone else in jail get to enjoy their freedom. Kudos to Mike Hunter for reminding us that the Oklahoma judicial system is a rigged game that benefits churchy white conservative people with money.
Anyway, I really want to close this with some generic, pun-fueled remark like "this likely closes the final chapter in our Tate Publishing coverage," but I doubt that will be case. Con men, especially the shameless ones of the evangelical Christian variety, always seems to resurface... and fall into their own trap. I'm sure we'll hear from them again.
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