Tax-Evading Restaurateur's Sentence Is Delivering Pizzas to the Homeless

by Josie Raymond · 2010-10-20 07:45:00 UTC
Topics:

Who's hungry?

This is the kind of rough justice we can get behind: a pizza shop owner in Buffalo, NY who cheated the government out of more than $100,000 in sales tax in the last four years has been sentenced to good works. Instead of getting prison time for his guilty plea to third-degree grand larceny, a state Supreme Court judge just ruled that Joseph Jacobbi, who owns Casa-Di-Pizza, must deliver 12 pizzas each week for the next year to the Buffalo City Mission. (Story from the always-interesting Twitter feed of @hardlynormal.)

While the pizzas will not go to waste, Jacobbi should know that decent nutrition is hard to come by when one is homeless. After all, McDonald's is chosen more often for the price than the food. So if he could kick in some side salads, he'd be doing even more good.

Thinking about this for too long makes my head hurt. How much of that $104,000 in withheld sales tax could have been used on services for the poor and the homeless in New York State? Sadly, I wonder if it's not less than it would take to deliver a dozen pizzas to a single shelter 52 times. Jacobbi still has to contribute the cash, though; he's repaid about half so far. In any case, men sitting in prison aren't contributing to society much, if at all — and often see earnings decreased by 40 percent after their release — so at least Jacobbi can keep paying taxes while he serves his sentence and some large pies for the homeless.

Working off this new judicial model, what should be the next item on the docket? How about forcing those unethical foreclosure fiends to invite someone homeless over to stay in the guest bedroom?

Photo credit: Penny

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.
PREVIOUS STORY:
What Americans Really Believe About Our Economy
NEXT STORY:
Is the NCAA Putting Student Athletes at Risk?

COMMENTS (2)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.