Using your elected position to secure for yourself a no-money-down share of a real estate deal potentially worth millions of dollars and consulting fees in the range of $30,000: A year of house arrest.
Getting the developers on whose projects you pass judgment to subsidize your wedding and loan you $100,000 with virtually no collateral: Ten months in jail on work release.
Scuffling with deputies while trying to defend your son's ill-advised foray onto a New Year's Eve stage: A bloody nose, a holiday in jail and felony charges that could bring 30 years in prison.
The sense of disproportion and irony on display in the Collier County criminal justice system: Priceless.
In reality, the costs to the defendants in the Stadium Naples case will be higher than the court-imposed sentences and fines. There are debilitating attorneys fees and damaged reputations that can't be rebuilt.
And the case of Alex Zivojinovich, aka Alex Lifeson of Rush, is far from settled.
But the prospect remains that when all is settled, Zivojinovich, the guitarist in a rock band remarkable as much for its thoughtful lyrics as for its power chords and laser lights, will have paid a stiffer penalty for what is — at worst — a drunken brawl than former county commissioners paid for flat-out corruption.
No one wants to defend fighting with and injuring deputies trying to do their jobs. And if officers' one-sided account of the New Year's Eve dust-up at the Ritz-Carlton proves to be accurate, there ought to be a penalty for those that did.
But let's put the cases on the supposed scales of justice.
On the one hand, you have a few drinks, maybe more than a few. Your son does the same. Your son decides he should wish everyone a happy new year from the stage. The band, hotel security and eventually police decide he shouldn't. You try to intercede. The situation escalates. The next thing you know you're hooked up to a Taser with a pint of O negative on your shirt.
On the other, you find yourself in a position of power and trust. People want you to do things for them. You start talking to them about what they can do for you. They get something of value. You get something of value. It happens more than once over a period of months. When people find out, you deny any wrongdoing. You scoff at your accusers. You don't give anything back.
There are those that will argue that a single error in judgment that involves violence merits harsher punishment than systematic profiteering at the expense of the public trust. Hence the notoriously light sentences handed out in cases of white-collar crime, as opposed to the going price for, what was in Zivojinovich's case, a red-collar crime.
But can anyone really argue that Zivojinovich did more to harm to the citizens of Collier County than did former County Commissioners John Norris or Tim Constantine? Their cases, coupled with those of their Stadium Naples co-defendants, destroyed trust in a government faced with the relentless press of development.
They could have chosen to put the citizens' interests first. They didn't.
As a thoughtful rock band once offered, "And the men who hold high places, must be the ones who start to mold a new reality ..."
E-mail Brent Batten at bebatten@naplesnews.com.