Go directly to jail
Another excerpt from Options, the fictional novel by Fake Steve Jobs poser Dan Lyons.
"Steve," she says," this is serious. The SEC is sending lawyers here and they're going to go through our books. The U.S. Attorney has contacted us too. Some of these backdated options went to you. Do you understand?"
"I could understand this if I wanted to. I just don't want to. So just take it out of my bank account or whatever. Jesus. Do I have to do everything for you guys?"
"Well, paying a fine would be one scenario."
She looks at me.
I'm like, "Dude, what? Spit it out."
"Well," she goes, "some people are facing criminal charges. Some people might be going to ... well, in some cases, certain charges may carry potential penalties that could include fines or even, possibly, in some scenarios, the poosibility of incarceration."
That's a strange word, incarceration, and after she says it a weird silence comes over the room. Suddenly the air feels really, really cold, and it's so quiet that I can hear the air conditioning whirring in the walls, and I'm thinking to myself, Holy friggin mother of Jesus, I am so going to kill the a-holes who did the HVAC work in this place.