Drabinsky and Gottlieb, who single-handedly proved that even doddering old guys can still rip you off, cooked the books at their failing Toronto theatre company not once, not twice, but every single quarter for six years to hide their decreasing revenue. Some people might call this creative accounting; the federal government prefers to call it fraud. They were arrested and charged accordingly, and now their lawyers have apparently decided that, instead of jail, it would be a good idea for Gottlieb and Drabinsky to give lectures to university students.
Of course, the Crown immediately dismissed it out of hand, for some crazy reason like "We don't let people who repeatedly manipulate their financial accounts get out of fraud charges by giving lectures on the 'discipline of the craft'".
But let's not be too hasty here:
In prison, the two gentlemen will likely face aggressive guards and inmates, restricted movement, lots of time confined to a cell, gangs, drugs and riots.
In the lecture hall, they'll be exposed to rampant texting, the slack faces of the stoned/hungover/drunk, an endless parade of latecomers who are neither apologetic nor quiet, temperamental slide projectors and sound systems, and a sea of open laptops indubitably all cruising through Facebook and Twitter, ready to deliver a different type of verdict on them in a few short lines of text:
"wtf who duz this guy think he is? im sooooooooo bored! y do i even come to this class?!?!!"
The lectures are starting to sound more and more like a serious punishment to me. Frankly, I think Gottlieb and Drabinsky are better off going to prison.
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