Being corrupt and greedy is no way to get through life, and former Atlanta City Councilwoman Davetta Johnson Mitchell (pictured) is learning that lesson.
On Friday, a judge found Johnson Mitchell guilty of theft charges for ripping off people while she worked at the Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation Authority.
Johnson Mitchell won't serve any prison time for stealing more than $30,000 from the recreation authority from 2000 to 2003. She was sentenced to five years probation and turned over $10,000 in restitution. Another $10,000 will be paid over the next five years.
Something seems off in the math.
If Johnson Mitchell stole $30,000, shouldn't she be paying at least $30,000 in restitution?
And wouldn't a figure of closer to $100,000 truly deliver the message to public officials that crime doesn't pay, especially when you hold the public trust in the your hands?
Johnson Mitchell, 55, represented east Atlanta as an Atlanta city council member from 1997 to 2003. I hope authorities are going through her paperwork from those years with a fine-tooth comb in search for other acts of thievery.
Maybe authorities won't let her get away without sufficient punishment once again.
I understand the overall crime of taking $30,000 from the public isn't exactly murder, but in its own way, stealing of this type by elected officials has a much more corrosive effect on our government than anything else I can think of.
The sad truth is that many public officials have the opportunity to dip in to public coffers and steal.
As a rookie reporter covering township council and planning board and zoning board meetings in the late 1980s, I was shocked to learn how easy it is for local officials to make money by misplacing a decimal point on a contract or getting a "donation' from a local builder in exchange for a public contract.
The amount of oversight on local government transactions is shockingly lax.
That is why the law has to come down hard on people like Atlanta's Johnson Mitchell -- to show others in their position that you will get hit with serious penalties if caught stealing the people's money.