In recent months we've seen stories of persons who, when accused of civil violations, solicit money for their defense through crowdfunding, including most notably a website called GoFundMe.com. GoFundMe turned down the effort of the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky after she was briefly jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses, but has accepted efforts to fund the defense of Second Amendment cases, marijuana cases, and deputy sheriffs.
It's all very well to raise money to get people out of legal trouble, but these efforts point out the need for a similar crowdfunding source to get wealthy miscreants into legal trouble -- or, more exactly, to provide a way for the general public to express their view of the malefactors' crimes. Hence the Laquedem Crowdfining Plan: GoFineMe, to provide a measure of the public wrath against those who steal and cheat on a grand scale. It works like this: if a judge or jury convicts a defendant of (say) securities fraud or some other massive financial crime that has identifiable victims, the court will open a GoFineMe account for a specified period of time, into which the public can donate funds to be used as restitution for the victims. The GoFineMe wrinkle is that the judge will also sentence the malefactor to pay a fine equal to X times the GoFineMe fund. A piker at the swindling game might be fined an amount equal to somewhere between half and twice the GoFineMe fund. A master of the art, if convicted, might be fined 10 or 20 times the GoFineMe amount. The fine would be used as restitution to the victims. It would work like a matching gift to charity, and it's far more gentle on the offender than setting up the stocks in the town square next to a supply of rotten tomatoes.