By Chuck Gallagher — Business Ethics Keynote Speaker and Trainer
Bloomberg’s Marie Gottschalk documents how the U.S. has systematically retreated from prosecuting white-collar crime over four decades, a bipartisan trend now accelerating under the Trump administration, which canceled 145 federal enforcement actions in 2025 alone. Chuck Gallagher, business ethics keynote speaker and former white-collar offender turned 30-year ethics advocate, offers a perspective few commentators can: when the system punishes small players but shields the powerful, it doesn’t just fail justice — it teaches everyone watching that the rules only apply if you’re not big enough to buy your way past them.
I went to federal prison for embezzlement and tax evasion. I was the youngest tax partner at a regional CPA firm, and I made a series of choices that destroyed my career, my reputation, and my freedom. The system caught me. The system prosecuted me. The system punished me. And I deserved it. I’ve spent the thirty years since rebuilding my life and helping organizations understand that every choice has a consequence. But here’s what I’ve struggled with for three decades, and what Bloomberg’s Marie Gottschalk lays bare in her devastating analysis of white-collar crime in America: the consequences I faced aren’t the same consequences that major corporations and their executives face. Not even close.
Why Does the System Punish Small Players But Protect the Powerful?
As a business ethics keynote speaker who lived through the criminal justice system as a defendant, I can tell you something that most commentators on this topic can’t: the system works. It works efficiently, thoroughly, and with lasting consequences — when it decides to use it. I lost everything. I served my time. I carry a felony record that has shaped every professional relationship I’ve had for three decades. That’s what accountability looks like. It’s painful, it’s humbling, and it changed my life in ways I’m still processing. I don’t resent the punishment. I resent the selectivity.
Gottschalk’s reporting confirms what I’ve witnessed from both sides of the system. On the eve of the September 11 attacks, approximately 1,700 FBI agents were assigned to investigate white-collar crimes. By the 2008 financial crisis, that number had dropped by 36%. The subprime mortgage scandal cost American households an estimated $19 trillion to $22 trillion in lost wealth. Millions of people lost their homes, many through fraudulent foreclosures. The Justice Department prosecuted hundreds of individuals connected to the crisis — but they were mostly bit players. The large financial institutions and their senior executives walked away. Companies paid fines that amounted to rounding errors on their quarterly earnings. After leaving office, even former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke conceded that more bankers should have gone to prison.
I read that and I think about the $50,000 I embezzled that sent me to federal prison. I think about executives who oversaw fraud measured in billions and paid a fine from corporate funds that never touched their personal accounts. The message the system sends is unmistakable: if you’re small enough to prosecute cleanly, you’ll face the full weight of the law. If you’re large enough to require a complex investigation, you’ll get a deferred prosecution agreement and a press release.
How Did Deferred Prosecution Agreements Become a Shield for Corporate Crime?
Gottschalk identifies one of the most consequential shifts in American criminal justice that most people have never heard of: the rise of deferred prosecution agreements and nonprosecution agreements. DPAs were originally created in the 1930s to give poor and young defendants a second chance without the permanent stain of a criminal record. The irony is staggering. These instruments — designed to protect the vulnerable — became the primary tool for handling the most powerful defendants in the system. Under a DPA, a corporation avoids prosecution in exchange for structural reforms, ethics programs, and financial penalties. The company pays. Nobody goes to prison. And the agreements are typically based on investigations conducted by the corporation itself, not by law enforcement.
I didn’t get a deferred prosecution agreement. Nobody offered me one. I got indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced. The system treated me as an individual who made criminal choices and held me personally accountable. I accept that. But when I watch corporations receive DPAs for money laundering, bribery, securities fraud, and rate-fixing — what Gottschalk quotes bootlegger Al Capone would have called the “legitimate rackets” — I have to ask: at what point did we decide that corporate crime is a negotiable offense while individual crime is not?
What Happens When the Government Stops Pretending to Enforce the Rules?
Gottschalk documents that the retreat from white-collar prosecution is bipartisan — it accelerated under Clinton, continued under Bush and Obama, and is now reaching a new extreme under the current Trump administration. In 2025, the administration canceled 145 federal enforcement actions inherited from the Biden administration against 153 companies that had allegedly broken the law, according to consumer-rights group Public Citizen. Thirty-one of those companies — including Meta, Bank of America, and Amazon — made donations to fund either Trump’s inauguration or the new White House ballroom.
As an AI ethics speaker and author who works with organizations on accountability and governance, I can tell you exactly what happens when enforcement disappears: the ethical floor collapses. Not because people are inherently corrupt, but because accountability is the structure that keeps good people honest. I know this from personal experience. When nobody is watching, when the consequences are theoretical, when the system signals that certain players are exempt from the rules — the rationalizations that lead to ethical failure become easier every single day. That’s true for individuals. It’s true for corporations. And it’s true for governments.
Virginia delegate George Mason warned at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that “if we do not provide against corruption, our government will soon be at an end.” We are testing that warning in real time. When corporations are de facto immune from criminal prosecution, when enforcement actions get canceled and the companies that benefited are the same ones funding the administration’s events, the message to every business leader, every compliance officer, every employee weighing an ethical decision is clear: the rules are optional if you’re powerful enough. That’s not a policy position. That’s the death of deterrence. And I can tell you from standing on the other side of that line — deterrence is the only thing that keeps most ethical systems functioning.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the punishment gap in white-collar crime?
The punishment gap refers to the widening disparity between how the U.S. criminal justice system treats street crime versus corporate and white-collar crime. While state and federal prosecutors have sent record numbers of people to prison for violent, property, and drug-related offenses since the 1980s, prosecution of white-collar crime has declined significantly. Marie Gottschalk’s 2025 book documents how FBI agents assigned to white-collar cases dropped 36% between 2001 and 2008, and how deferred prosecution agreements have allowed major corporations to avoid criminal charges entirely.
What is a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA)?
A deferred prosecution agreement is a deal between federal prosecutors and a corporation in which the company avoids criminal prosecution in exchange for meeting certain conditions, such as implementing structural reforms, establishing ethics programs, and paying financial penalties or victim restitution. Originally created in the 1930s for young and low-income individual defendants, DPAs emerged in the early 2000s as the primary mechanism for handling major corporate crime cases. Critics argue that DPAs are often based on the corporation’s own internal investigation rather than independent law enforcement inquiry, and that compliance is rarely monitored.
How many enforcement actions did the Trump administration cancel in 2025?
According to consumer-rights group Public Citizen, the Trump administration canceled 145 federal enforcement actions inherited from the Biden administration against 153 companies that had allegedly broken the law. Thirty-one of those companies — including Meta, Bank of America, and Amazon — made donations to fund either Trump’s inauguration or the new White House ballroom. Bloomberg columnist Marie Gottschalk reports this is part of a broader bipartisan trend of retreating from corporate crime prosecution that has accelerated under the current administration.
How much wealth did Americans lose in the 2008 financial crisis?
U.S. households lost an estimated $19 trillion to $22 trillion in wealth as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis that sparked the Great Recession, including losses in real estate, stocks, and retirement savings. Millions of Americans lost their homes, many through fraudulent foreclosures by banks and mortgage companies. Despite the scale of the fraud, the Justice Department primarily prosecuted low-level defendants. The large financial firms and their senior executives largely avoided criminal charges. Chuck Gallagher, business ethics keynote speaker, argues this selective enforcement teaches the public that accountability depends on the size of the defendant, not the severity of the offense.
Why does the failure to prosecute white-collar crime matter for democracy?
The repeated failure to hold corporations and their executives accountable has contributed to plummeting public trust in government and to what Gottschalk describes as the enfeebled state of American democracy. When enforcement actions are canceled and the same companies that benefited donate to the administration’s events, the public perceives a two-tier justice system in which the powerful operate under different rules. Virginia delegate George Mason warned at the 1787 Constitutional Convention that failure to provide against corruption would bring the government to an end — a warning that grows more relevant as corporate criminal immunity becomes the practical norm.
I don’t write about this topic from a distance. I write about it as someone who faced the system, accepted the consequences, and rebuilt a life around the principle that choices matter. What troubles me most isn’t that I was punished — it’s that the standard I was held to doesn’t apply equally. I’d like to hear from you: do you believe white-collar crime is taken seriously in America today? Has the retreat from enforcement changed how you think about trust in institutions? Share your thoughts in the comments at ChuckGallagher.com, and if this piece pushed your thinking, consider the five questions below.
Related Articles:
Ethics Training: Building a Culture of Integrity Beyond Compliance
From Content to Conversion: How AI-Generated Articles Become Trust, Leads, and Revenue
