Judge Sees Criminal Justice System From the Other Side
March 3, 2006 — -- Roland Amundson isn't your average con man. He's spent half his life in the criminal justice system.
Not behind bars but behind the bench.
Before he was sentenced to more than five years in prison for theft and fraud in 2002, Roland Amundson was a judge. For more than a decade, he served as a Minnesota appeals court judge. His was a long fall from grace.
Amundson has been released from prison. In an interview with "Nightline," he said that his experience was like "being kicked out of an airplane into the ocean. What was it like? It was like hell."
For decades, Amundson, 56, was regarded as a saint within the Minneapolis community. He lectured at law schools and sat on the boards of various charities -- and that's where the trouble started.
During the early 1990s, a friend and former client asked him to become the trustee of a fund that had been established to care for his mentally handicapped daughter. The man's daughter, although adult, had the mental capacity of a 3-year-old and required constant care. Amundson willingly accepted the task.
The father eventually passed away, and Amundson was in sole charge of the trust's accounts.
Figuring that nobody would challenge his authority, he began stealing money from the account -- writing checks for everything from model railway trains to marble flooring in his home. By the time he was caught, he had written 114 checks for a total of $400,000. The trust fund had been drained dry.
So why did a well-respected appeals court judge who made a good salary exploit a vulnerable woman?
Amundson's explanation, and his experience behind bars, raises serious questions about the purpose of prison and the criminal justice system in America. Watch "Nightline" tonight to find out more.
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