Working at a criminal defense law firm, I have an interesting life. I talk with a wide variety of different types of people each day. In my case, these folks are facing criminal charges and are looking for a criminal attorney. From my experience, a person commits crimes for one of three reasons:

1. He or she is mentally disabled or suffers from some type of psychological or physiological condition that causes him or her to make bad decisions.
2. He or she has grown up in an environment that has “bread” this type of behavior into their life.
3. He or she is very “normal” law abiding citizen who finds himself or herself in a desperate situation, financial or emotional, and they make a bad choice that is not reflective of his or her typical character.

I think most people fall into category 3, especially when it comes to the white collar crime of embezzlement. A lot of people end up in dire financial situations from credit card debt, school loans, or just monthly bills and think to themselves, “No one will notice if I take some money to pay off my bills. I’ll pay it back! I know I will!” Everyone I talk to who has embezzled finds themselves embarrassed, without a job, and wondering why the **** they decided this was a good idea!!?

Criminal attorneys, or embezzlement lawyers, understand that these theft crimes are not violent crimes or sex crimes where the victim is physically hurt; embezzlement lawyers understand that the accused did not want to hurt anyone, instead the accused just wanted to help himself/herself. Although this is not an acceptable excuse in any way, the real damage done to the victim is a monetary one; and that is easy to fix – just by paying them back.

Embezzlement is a serious crime, but the good news is that the employer usually just wants their money back. A good criminal defense attorney can often help a client avoid criminal charges by working out a solution that can be handled privately (assuming the police are not yet involved). When the police are involved, embezzlement lawyers are still often able to minimize the criminal charges and encourage the court to focus on a financial solution rather than jail or prison time.

I think this really speaks to the way people operate. Our sense of right and wrong can all too often depend on whether we think we’ll be caught or not. It would be great if we all made the right decision every time. None of us do. We all make mistakes, unfortunately some of these mistakes can land a person in jail. The important thing for us all to understand is that what’s in the past is in the past and all we have control over is how we move on from here.