I take issue with Peggy Purvis’s recent letter to the editor (Sept. 18) criticizing me for a letter I sent to a different newspaper.

I wrote that letter in reaction to Bashas’ AJ’s Supermarket being ordered to pay $1.4 million to food banks as “restitution” for being caught selling cheaper choice steak as $25 a pound prime.

As a retired police detective sergeant, current criminal justice professor and lawmaker, I know that restitution is intended to compensate crime victims for their loss, but that’s not what the federal prosecutor did.

I stand by my original words:

“Worse yet, the U.S. Attorney’s office sets the penalty as Bashas’ paying ‘restitution’ by donating $1.4 million to area food banks. Last I heard, restitution was something paid to crime victims to compensate them for their losses. Since I hardly think food bank patrons also purchased $25 per pound prime steaks in AJ’s, where is the restitution? This is what happens when you have a Justice Department more interested in their idea of social justice instead of legal justice. AJ’s should have been required to sell prime meat at lower prices for a period of time to give true restitution to the actual victims instead of pursuing politically correct justice.”

Purvis incorrectly wrote that the $1.4 million was a “penalty.” It was not. It was “restitution.”

Hopefully, now that Purvis knows the facts, she will understand why the prosecutor was wrong.

We all want to help food banks and many of us, including my wife and myself, do so by donating our own money. A prosecutor who diverts restitution money away from crime victims to the poor may be well meaning but he or she is still wrong.

In law, following the principle that “The end justifies the means” is a very dangerous road to go down.