Stop the presses! We have an announcement!

Ohio is crime-free. No robbers, no murderers, no arsonists, no child molesters. No kidnappers, no tax evaders, no car thieves.

How do we know this? Because Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro just sued GMAC after GMAC reported to the AG that a dealer had defrauded it in connection with the dealer’s sale of leased cars. Listen to GMAC’s travails –

Midway Motors leased cars for GMAC. Midway’s agreement was that they would lease GMAC’s cars for two years, with an allowance of 30,000 miles. Instead, Midway leased the cars to a business with a two-year allowance of 60,000 to 80,000 miles. According to the AG, when the cars were returned to Midway, Midway rolled back the odometers to reflect the typical 30,000 mileage for vehicles leased for two years. The AG says that Midway or GMAC sold the vehicles with the incorrect odometer readings.

That doesn’t sound like particularly bad AG behavior, until you read GMAC’s press release in response to the AG’s announcement of his lawsuit.

GMAC announced that it was “deeply disappointed” at the AG’s suit, “particularly since GMAC discovered the problem, put a stop to it, corrected the harm and brought it to the Attorney General’s attention in the first place.” Say what?

GM’s press release recounts that it discovered the roll-backs and notified the AG of the problem. Then, on its own, GMAC identified the new owners of the cars, 23 of whom were in Ohio. GMAC then either bought the cars back from the new owners or paid them a monetary adjustment for the odometer discrepancy. This cleanup was overseen by the AG.

In the process of cleaning up the mess, GMAC spent $1.2 million. GMAC stated that it was the victim of the dealer’s actions, and that it expected a commendation from the AG’s office for its “exemplary” handling of the matter.

Instead, GMAC got hit with the AG’s suit. Talk about “no good deed goes unpunished!”

GMAC discovers a mess, voluntarily cleans it up, makes sure no one got hurt financially and reports the wrongdoing to the AG. What else could a responsible and ethical corporate citizen have done? How many corporations would have taken such a “high road” approach? What will other corporate citizens think of the idea of reporting bad acts like these in the future?

The only explanation that fits this thoroughly bizarre action by the AG is that there is no criminal activity in Ohio to occupy the AG’s time and resources. No health care fraud, no organized crime, no bribery, no extortion.

We think maybe we’ll move to Ohio where, evidently, the only crime is the way the AG wastes his time and the taxpayers’ money.

Vol 2, Issue 5