The Wheels of Justice (Editorial)

Justice delayed, it has been correctly noted, is justice denied. That ancient maxim came to mind last week when Little Rock businessman Matt Lile was, at very long last, sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison.

So long was that day coming that his crime and the discovery of it almost seem like ancient history. It was in the fall of 2009 that state regulators took Cosmopolitan Life Insurance Co. of Little Rock into receivership and sued Lile personally for misusing company funds, acts that contributed to the insolvency.

That lawsuit was dismissed in 2011, then refiled in 2012. Not until mid-2013 did a federal grand jury make a criminal indictment for the same diversion of company money. Now, two years and a negotiated plea agreement later, Lile has finally been sentenced — and given three more months of freedom before he reports to federal prison.

It’s impossible to say whether this case or other nigh-eternal prosecutions that we could name had to take as long as they did. And it would take a psychologist to explain why some confessed criminals seem to want to delay the inevitable prison sentence as long as possible rather than getting it over with and returning to a more normal life sooner rather than later.

It is notable that, all these years later, Lile still owes restitution — $118,500. That seems to be common as well.

Meanwhile, John Rogers, the North Little Rock man at the center of an international scandal over historic photos and millions of dollars in debt and unfulfilled promises, became acquainted last week with the Pulaski County jail. He has not been charged with a crime, but the accommodations for contempt of court are no more comfortable.

For those of us who are merely observers, the knowledge that, sooner or later, bad business operators have to pay is a comforting one. We’d just like to have that comfort sooner.