Spanky gets the slammer — put your comments here
Daniel Lobo | Wikimedia Commons
Calling his behavior “outrageous” and “totally beyond the pale,” a federal judge sentenced Roland “Spanky” Macher to 30 months in prison this morning. In March, the Roanoke landlord and former restaurateur and towing operator pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion, bankruptcy fraud and food-stamp fraud.
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August 4, 2011 - 12:13 PM
Unleash the schadenfreude!
He should get another 30 for being an a..hole.
I got to know Spanky when my company did work for him and then we had a bit of a time getting paid. We did eventually. But during that time I got to know Spanky some. He seems to be highly creative, VERY artistic, has an artist way of looking at the world and responding to it. But he also has a darker side that he tries to hide, probably like we all do. He and his lawyer definately took to a whole new level the art of avoiding having to pay debts and the ins and outs of bankruptcy, and creating corporations to shelter things. He is NOT a very good business man. I think however the he and his brother were a very successful combination; when Spanky did the creative stuff and his brother took care of the business stuff. Unfortunately for spanky he got in over his head and never could get out. He always seemed to have bad luck on top of that. Maybe this jail time will be what it takes to stop him from going any deeper in a hole, and give him the opportunity to build something of quality and respectability out of his life and reputation.
i am sure i am not alone in thinking he is getting off easy.I hope he keeps his same name in prison.
spanky get bad juju, its about time.
While in prison maybe Spanky will get to visit his former employee, Robbie May. Remember him?
Spanky appears to ne to have some kind of mental problem. He certainly is his own worst enemy. Maybe some prison time will change him, but I doubt it.
The Commonwealth should confine him to one of his rental “properties”, not the Glenvar Hilton. That would be some cruel and unusual (just) punishment.
Rob, that was hilarious!!!
I was thinking the same thing when I read Dan’s post.
Come to think of it, we may be a little twisted.
That was funny!
I have known Spanky for 15 years; watched him raise his kids and the rise and fall of several of his business and life pursuits. He is the kind of person that many people seem to focus their hate needs on, but in my experience with him, he has been generous and kind to everyone he is involved with…especially his kids and their friends and families.
It is pretty easy to look at Spanky and his business mishaps and make him the scapegoat for all angers us, but his impulsive and unacceptable decisions don’t warrent the kind of punishment that we hand out to violent offenders. This kind of punishment is what happens when our judges and lawyers want to bury the problems they can’t control.
Spanky indeed sees things differently and doesn’t follow all the rules. I wonder how many of those jeering at him have gotten away with worse offenses. Surely he needs to find acceptable ways to live in society…Do you think he going to find them in prison?
Prison is not a rehabiltation institution, if you have ever visted. It is a place that can be hell and make a person that made a bad decision into a monster. 30 months is a long time in prison. If the anger and frustration of some of the mean spirited bloggers had a few days in prison themselves, it might be eye opening. Have any of you ever broken a law that you could have gone to prison for, but avoided?
I am not saying ignore the lawbreakers, but prison does not pay back the mistakes or even protect society from a non-violent man for long. We need to come up with better solutions for problems then putting non-violent offenders behind bars.
Maybe Spanky does have some thinking problems and needs help. He is not a mean spirited person or dangerous though. 30 months behind bars is not a slap on the wrist or a way to help him get back to being productive…and Spanky has that ability, despite the nasayers, who are flocking to mock him. Let’s hope the judgement many of us have avoided doesn’t come back to haunt us when we jump on the band wagon like this.
Spanky is deep down a good guy, I feel like he got so used to being sketchy that he didn’t know any other way. He rented a rehearsal space to my band for years when no one else in town would, and I will be forever indebted to him for that. I’m sure he’ll come out of jail with tons of creative and interesting ideas!
Worse punishment would be to have to move next door to Suzie for 30 months.
Bruce I respectfully disagree. Jail is a place you sit and think about your mistakes. Jail fits society’s needs in that you remove a person from it, to protect others from the person. With the above criteria set, jail is exactly where this man belongs.
Failing to pay taxes, taking food stamps illegally, etc is stealing. Stealing from the government is stealing from me. If you steal from me, jail is where you belong, if for no other reason, you are being protected from my own form of vigilante justice.
I don’t think Spanky Macher is a mean spirited person, but he does appear to be a person who can’t control his impulses. OCD? I think he needs long term therapy and perhaps medication.
I hope Spanky uses the time wisely and constructively to lay the groundwork to rebuild his life. We all make mistakes and he made his. My thoughts go out to his 3 wonderful children and the hurt they all must feel.
Wow william nova, sick try at a nasty jab…
He has a 15-month-old with a meth addict??
“30 months behind bars is not a slap on the wrist or a way to help him get back to being productive.”
He is a multiple repeat offender of more than one offense. I’m not clear why anyone owes him a “slap on the wrist”. For all he’s done, 30 months doesn’t seem out of line, and your defense of him – that basically we’re all criminals too and just haven’t been caught – is weak sauce.
“Have any of you ever broken a law that you could have gone to prison for, but avoided?”
Short answer, no. I suggest you speak for yourself.
@#10 and #13
I am inclined to agree with Bruce. My husband has a friend from high school, whose younger brother was sent to prison for five years for theft. At the time that his brother was sentenced, stealing was the worst thing he had done….he was not a violent or dangerous person, just a stupid kid who went along with his buddies and did something dumb.
Did he deserve to be punished? Of course, he broke the law, and stealing is wrong.
Was five years in prison the right answer? I think not. As Bruce said, prison is hell, and having to hold your own that long amongst truly violent and depraved people will change you. In the case of this particular young man, he was released after serving his five years, and only a few months later ended up back in prison because he stabbed his older brother in a fit of anger and tried to attack his own mother.
Does that happen to everyone? No, probably not, but Bruce has a point about punishing a non-violent criminal by locking him in with violent offenders. Save long prison sentences for those who truly pose a danger to society (the raping and killing kind of danger).
“If you steal from me, jail is where you belong, if for no other reason, you are being protected from my own form of vigilante justice.”
Jail, yes. Prison, not so much.
This tax cheat and liar deserved much more prison time than 30 months! Vacationing in Europe while his ventures tanked, profiting from a SC condo sale, falsely claiming home-bound dependents, and still having the “time” to father an illegitimate kid – all the while claiming financial hardship requiring food stamp assistance – add up to one thing: criminal!He’s lucky the judge was lenient.
My first gig when I moved here was at his place and songwriter Michael Johnathon and I did one night there. The song and dance we had to get our money was, well it was not good.
The old saying of what comes around goes around, so maybe karma works.
I agree with everything Suzie writes, but “Bova”…… that was a REALLY funny comment. People need to lighten up on this blog and give good natured and truly witty jabs like Bova did.
I worked for Spanky for 3 weeks in his office years ago. We discovered that payroll checks were bouncing every single week! He would move money around from one account to another but never on time. He also took cash from his renters. Would make copies on his copier and keep the cash. Section 8 renters would have seperate contracts. they would pay him more than the contract said, in cash! He had workers show up at night for their pay and wait all day and night. The workers were usually homeless. HE paid them in cash and would give them reasons why he wasn’t going to pay them for the hard work they had done. He would make them do 2 other apartments before he paid them. He was awful! He DID get off easy!! He should have gotten the maximum jail time! Wish they had asked me to testify!! What a creep he is.
It’s Bush’s fault.
Rob’s comment about “…keeping the same name in prison…” was hilarious indeed! As a very TWISTED aside, I think the mere threat of “prison rape” should be a deterrent to breaking the law (my dark side is showing…)! I get so angry when I think of proposed entitlement cuts versus costs to incarcerate (weight rooms, vegetarian menus, cable tv, clean sheets, clean clothes, running water, libraries, family visitation). Prison should be akin to Devil’s Island and the black hole of Calcutta examples of yore. Perhaps the fear of sharing a steel bunk with a cockroach (or being some bully’s “bitch” of the day) and eating mac’n cheese and rolled oats for 30 months or more would make people think twice about committing crime (white collar or violent). A crime is a crime…is a crime…is a crime…
Headline should read: “Karma finally caught up to Spanky today”
I’ve known a few guys like him, always trying to operate right at the edge of the law without overtly breaking it, they spend more time scheming than doing things right.
IMHO he doomed himself with the court as soon as he violated his bond conditions.
VT Hokie @8:58, there is one difference between your husband’s friends brother, he was a stupid kid. Roland “Spanky” Macher is a grown man who knew full well what he was doing. Even after being charged, he continued to break the law. I doubt that he will be housed with violent offenders while in prison. I have sympathy for his family for the pain he has put them through, and I have a little sympathy for him, because I honestly believe he has mental problems. He seems to be extremely impulsive and unable to control his actions.
Is prison the best place for him? Probably not, but it’s what his actions warrant.
I do not know any of the Machers but the truth is that plenty of people have done much worse and never served a day in jail. I think he is a troubled individual and prison, in this case only serves as a harsh punishment. Making him work to pay back everyone he harmed, being on supervised probation, having to pay an accountant and bookkeeper to control his financial activities and report to the court for a specified period of time would have served society better than imprisonment IMO. One costs us money, the other costs him money, this is one of those no brainers IMO.
I’m pretty sure he’s going to end up in a cushy federal prison, rather than a PMITA one.
If you don’t throw the book at tax evaders, you’ll find compliance falling off rapidly. I’m sure up until recently, Macher considered people who paid their taxes appropriately to be “suckers”.
I think Obama should hire Spanky. I mean he made Geithner Treasury Secretary and he was a tax cheater.
I’m betting there are many Spanky stories out there. The charge in this case that boils my blood is the food stamp scam. How dare this man ask for assistance (regardless of his dependant situation) when he is wheeling and dealing and has money most of us never will? We criticize “welfare mothers” for abusing the system of assistance for the needy. That might be bad, but I have never heard of a welfare mother who has her kids in private schools and travels to Europe. Hmm, maybe they have HUD homes in Hilton Head?
Wow. The most admirable thing I have ever heard about Spanky Macher is that he pled guilty.
I’m betting there are many Spanky stories out there. The one that boils my blood is the food stamp scam. How dare this man ask for assistance (regardless of his dependant situation) when he is wheeling and dealing and has money most of us never will? We criticize “welfare mothers” for abusing the system of assistance for the needy. That might be bad, but I have never heard of a welfare mother who has her kids in private schools and travels to Europe. Hmm, maybe they have HUD homes in Hilton Head?
The people sticking up for Spanky apparently never lived in one of his apartments or had to deal with his particular brand of idiocy. When I looked at the place I moved into it was filthy and overrun with cockroaches and rodents but he assured me that it would be “spotless” and “bug free” when I moved in 2 weeks later. I took him at his word (fool that I was) and it took me over 2 weeks of coming home from work and putting in another 8 hours of hard labor to make the place livable. Spanky then had the nerve to send a summons to the pig who lived there before me (and he sent it to my apartment KNOWING she had moved) charging her a $500 cleanup and damage fee – just one problem I had with that – I was the person who did the cleanup. In addition he sent me a $30 electric bill for the electric I used to clean up the filth. I have before and after pictures. I can prove what I’m saying. I asked him for no trespassing signs because hookers and crack heads were hanging out on the back deck. I had to purchase them myself as well as a fence to block the entrance to keep them out. I nearly froze to death last winter because there is literally no insulation. There were homeless people living in the basement along with bats and graffiti and used condoms. The insulation literally hangs in shreds from ceiling to floor. The apartment upstairs has such a bad leak in the roof that the people who rent it have to put a Tupperware container on the bed to catch the water when it rains. The water (which he was supposed to be responsible for) was shut off at least 4 times in the year I lived there and the back security lights and foyer lights and heat were shut for almost 8 weeks due to him not paying the bill. I never thought I would say thank God I paid my own electric bill because if he were responsible I would have been freezing AND in the dark. In the entire time I was there I was not late with my rent once, yet when he was in jail one of his thugs came around and left a threatening note that I would be “put out” if I didn’t pay my rent. After emailing Spanky and copying in the Roanoke police department about the threat I got a scribbled note from Spanky saying they didn’t find my money order till about 5 weeks after I paid it and he apologized for the “harassment”. I was locked out of my apartment one day, he was in jail and had no one covering him that I knew of and I had to have the people upstairs break in my door so I could get in. I of course, paid to have it fixed. I could go on indefinitely about the conditions Spanky expects people to live in. The second I could I got out and in spite of the way he treated me I left the apartment clean and ready for the next poor people to be taken advantage of. I have countless emails from him that make absolutely no sense. Is he a bad man? I don’t think so – I just think that he will take advantage of anyone for “a buck” and he honestly believes he can do anything he wants and get away with it. For me it’s not so much how he broke the law that brings on these comments, it’s his treatment and lack of respect for people in general. He will probably spend what time he actually stays in prison plotting his next grand scheme. I just am glad to be out of what was truly a horrible situation.
10-1 he ends up at Seymoure Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, NC. Federal white collar criminals from this area generally are housed in barracks on the base. The list of local “graduates” is surprising.