Those who tried to scam you, what prison time would you give?

In the '90s it was telemarketers we hated. Now it’s scammers blowing up our phones to the point we no longer answer a number not already in our contacts. They’re also blowing up our inboxes, our social media, and our dating apps.

Kenny Osas Okuonghae seemingly stopped at nothing to con people out of money.

This 38-year-old from Edison convinced a man in Ohio that he was a woman named Aggie Gonzalez, and manipulated the man until he fell in love from afar. Then he convinced the victim that Aggie was dying and in desperate and increasing need of medicine and medical equipment.

This charmer also convinced the victim of yet another alter ego, the doctor treating Aggie. Over time the Ohio man lost $416,155, according to nj.com.

While all this was going on he was scamming others. There was a cryptocurrency scam. There was a Washington woman who lost $4,100 for a rental home that didn’t exist. There was another romance scam that cost another victim $555,000 over time. On and on and on.

Now here’s where your blood should boil. After all this, and they finally caught this bastard, he was sentenced last week to only four years and three months in a federal prison.

That’s it.

Sure, he was ordered to pay back the victims, but of course he won’t. And it’s bad enough that most scammers are never even caught. The lowest form of this seems to be credit card identity theft and we all know the credit card companies don’t seem to go after police investigations and just pass along their loss margins to all of us equally in higher interest rates. Even for more serious scams, how often do we really hear of thorough investigations and charges?

Here, when they successfully prosecute one, this is the result. 51 months in a ‘club fed’ and do we truly think when he’s out at age 42 he’ll live a clean and wholesome life? Give me a break.

Think about it.

All the people who tried to scam you have certainly been successful with others. If it were your son, like mine who was once scammed out of more than $3,000, or your grandmother, what sentence would you give the creep?

First, consider how cowardly a crime it is. Sure, it’s not a violent crime like a mugging and in no way am I defending muggers here, but at least there’s a nakedness to that crime.

They’re taking something confrontationally, by implied force, face to face, and at least you know what’s happening and at least, in a weird way, the mugger has skin in the game.

These scammers hurt people often far worse and like sniveling cowards, do it from behind screens and phones never risking being physically throttled should the tables be turned. But we’ll call it white-collar crime.

I don’t respect either criminal, but honestly? Forced to choose I’d have to say I have even less respect for the con artist.

I feel if you’re a lazy coward who hurts this many people you belong in prison for 20 years. Am I wrong?

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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