Opinion ID: 804324
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Corporate Culture at Aggregate

Text: In its Loss Order, the court noted, What appears to have been at play was a corporate culture in which pressure, much of it self-generated, was exerted on defendants to perform service for the short-term benefit of the organization without heed to the moral consequences or public harm. Loss Order at 5. Similarly, at sentencing, the district court stated, [I]t is not clear to me why these defendants were necessarily plucked out to be the 'poster children' -- if I may use the phrase -- for a larger corporate culture that I agree was morally lazy, and so focused on the short term that it became heedless to the consequences or impacts of the behavior that it encouraged. Finally, in the Statement of Reasons for both Prosperi and Stevenson, the court made a third reference to corporate culture, noting, There is no evidence that the defendant intended to enrich himself personally or intended to harm the CA/T [Central Artery/Tunnel] project or taxpaying public in any specific sense. Instead, the defendant was part of a corporate culture that did not consider moral consequences or public harm. The government makes much of those corporate culture statements, arguing that [b]y ascribing blame for the offenses of conviction to the purported evils of the 'corporate culture' rather than to the individual defendants themselves, the district court both absolved Prosperi and Stevenson of responsibility for their criminal actions and sentenced them based on the 'straw man' of -29- corporate culture rather than on Prosperi and Stevenson themselves. We read the court's corporate culture statements differently. The reference to Aggregate's corporate culture in the Statement of Reasons comes immediately after the district court distinguished Prosperi and Stevenson from other white-collar criminals by noting that they were not motivated by personal enrichment. Thus, the reference to corporate culture was an attempt to identify an alternative motive -- a single-minded interest in the success of their company, and not to absolve the defendants of all responsibility. Even in referring to Aggregate's corporate culture, the court did not fail to take note of Prosperi and Stevenson's role in creating that culture. In its Loss Order, the court noted that the pressure on Prosperi and Stevenson produced by Aggregate's corporate culture was largely selfgenerated. Thus, the court acknowledged that Prosperi and Stevenson each bore some responsibility for creating the corporate culture that it condemned. Also, Prosperi and Stevenson did receive more substantial sentences than their co-defendants. As noted, they were each sentenced to six months of home detention, three years of probation, and 1,000 hours of community service. In contrast, the other defendants, who held lesser positions within Aggregate's Ready-Mix Concrete Division, received lesser sentences. Farrar -30- received three months home detention, three years probation, and 750 hours community service; Blais received three months home detention, two years of probation, and 250 hours of community service; McNally received no home detention, eighteen months probation, and 200 hours of community service; and Thomas received no home detention, one year probation, and 125 hours of community service. Accordingly, the sentences imposed on Prosperi and Stevenson do reflect their higher positions within the corporation and their greater culpability.