A housekeeper at West Point military academy could face up to two years in military prison if convicted of trying to steal a bag of frozen meatballs.

The U.S. attorney's office said Estelle Casimir, 56, was charged with larceny and possession of stolen property, according to The Journal News, and pleaded not guilty at an arraignment last week in Middletown. Her lawyer, Michael Ferraro, would not comment on the case.

Big banks can steal the homes from millions of Americans without setting foot inside a jail cell, but military prison over a bag of crappy frozen meatballs?!? Putting a little more perspective on this, Ms. Casimir would face the same amount of time in prison as Trent Mays was sentenced to serve following his conviction in the Steubenville rape trial.

According to a signed affidavit, the operations manager on duty at West Point, spotted Casimir trying to hide a black bag with her hand and asked her what it was.

"Nothing, it is garbage," Casimir reportedly replied.

After some reluctance, Casimir revealed the bag of meatballs, the affidavit states.

Via:

Investigators say that Casimir is responsible for cleaning latrines in the mess hall, and that her job does not include the handling or disposing of food.

Court papers do not specify the number of meatballs involved. A company official who declined to give his name said Casimir is suspended, pending the outcome of the case. Casimir said she’s been looking for housecleaning work.

“I just sit in the house,” she said. “I don’t have anything to do.”

Swiss bank UBS said Wednesday it will pay a $1.5 billion fraud fine for orchestrating the manipulation of benchmark interest rates in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Last week, British bank HSBC agreed to pay $1.92 billion -- the largest bank fine ever -- to settle a U.S. investigation into the bank’s alleged money laundering with drug cartels. But still, UBS’s stiff penalty is more than three times the $450 million fine levied on British bank Barclays in June, which had also admitted to rigging the LIBOR rate, which is used to price worldwide loans. It hasn’t been a good couple of years for UBS, which also lost $2.3 billion in a rogue trading scandal earlier this year.

Reuters:

Dozens of UBS staff rigged the Libor rate, which is used to price trillions of dollars worth of loans, in collusion with brokers and traders at other banks, according to an investigation by authorities in multiple countries.

The controversy is expected to ensnare other big lenders and spark criminal and civil lawsuits against individuals involved. The penalty UBS agreed with U.S., UK and Swiss authorities far exceeds the $450 million levied on Britain's Barclays in June, also for rigging Libor, and the second largest ever imposed on a bank.

"This is an endemic banking industry problem and shows how far the industry has fallen, failing itself and its customers," said Neil Dwane, chief investment officer for Allianz Global Investors.

"For the future it shows that without strong regulation and strong and new management throughout most of the biggest banks, there can be no reasonable expectation that they will improve their behavior substantially - at least UBS now has strong new management."

(Emphasis mine.)

Unfortunately, it still seems that strong regulation of the banks ranks right up there with jail time for criminal bankers.