GenRe executive reaps the sentencing benefits of white-collar cooperation

This Reuters article, which is headlined "Former General Re exec gets probation in AIG fraud," spotlights the sentencing benefits that often flow from being a white-collar cooperator. Here is how it starts:

A former executive of reinsurer General Re Corp was sentenced to two years probation and fined $10,000 after pleading guilty to helping American International Group Inc cook its books.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Droney, imposing the relatively mild sentence on Richard Napier, said he was taking into account the defendant's extensive cooperation with prosectors. Napier's testimony helped convict four former General Re executives and one former AIG executive in February 2008, according to prosecutors.

Napier in 2005 pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, admitting that he agreed to deals between General Re and AIG that allowed the former insurance heavyweight to artificially inflate its profits. Napier served as senior vice president of General Re, a reinsurance unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc....

He could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison and fined $250,000. "Mr. Napier's cooperation with the government ... was of exceptional assistance," Droney said. "His testimony showed the extent of the sham reinsurance conspiracy."