Three girls recently broke into a billionaire’s Florida summer home on a $30,000 theft and vandalism spree.
They are lucky the billionaire was S. Truett Cathy, the 87-year- old CEO of Chick-fil-A.
Instead of prosecuting and demanding restitution, the Christian businessman is making them write “I will not vandalize other people’s property” 1,000 times. He’s also prohibiting them from watching TV and playing video games, and he’s making them read for a few hours a day.
Cathy told me he couldn’t bear to send the girls through the court system.
“I did not want to damage their reputations,” he said. “The older I get, the more I realize the importance of a good name.”
In third grade, Cathy selected the Bible verse of the week in Sunday school. With help from his mother, he chose Proverbs 22:1: “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.”
Cathy is proof you can have both. Forbes estimated his net worth last year at $1.3 billion.
The Atlanta-based chain he founded in 1967 has more than $2.6 billion in annual revenue, and it’s grown to about 1,380 stores, including 23 in Colorado.
Sales have grown in each of its 40 years, and Chick-fil-A is still growing despite a downturn in the economy.
“People still got to eat, thank goodness,” Cathy said.
Cathy can thank God and the self-preserving Chick-fil-A cows, who lure customers with “Eat Mor Chikin” signs. But his success also boils down to what he tells boys at Sunday school, where he’s taught for 51 years.
“If you make good decisions, you make good results. If you make bad decisions, you get bad results,” he said.
Sounds elemental, yet so many educated people — on Wall Street and in corporate America, professional sports, the entertainment industry and even religious organizations — are making bad choices and destroying their names.
The young vandals were just getting a head start.
“Two of them were 11 years old,” Cathy said. “One was 12. Only one out of the three had a father. . . . So at 4:30 in the afternoon . . . they were roaming around looking around for excitement.”
They found it at Cathy’s six- bedroom home near Daytona Beach, Fla.
“They first jumped into the swimming pool,” Cathy said. “Then they found someone had left the back door unlocked.”
One thing led to another. They sprayed fire extinguishers everywhere, had a food fight, left water running in the kitchen, scrawled obscenities throughout the house and stole some hair dryers.
“We have a large table that seats 16 people,” Cathy said. “They poured cooking oil on it and made a slide out of it. They were very creative, you see.”
Cathy understands. He considers himself “grandpa” to more than 150 children through his charitable foster-care program. Still, he’s not sure the girls are grateful for the offer he gave them.
“They didn’t demonstrate a repentant spirit,” Cathy said. “I hope I got a message to them.”
Cathy will follow up with the girls’ mothers to see that they’ve met his terms. If they haven’t, they’ll have to start over. And after that?
Well, there’s only so much mercy in this world. Cathy wants rehabilitation, but he might settle for vindication: “Don’t ask me what I’ll do next.”
Al Lewis’ column regularly appears Wednesdays and Sundays: 201-938- 5266 or al.lewis@dowjones.com
