A Vietnamese judge on Tuesday tossed property tycoon Truong My Lan’s appeal of her death sentence for ripping off the Saigon Commercial Bank to the tune of $12 billion over a decade, but offered her a chance at commutation for life if she can pay back 75 percent – or $9 billion – of the ill-gotten funds, the BBC reports on the incredible deal of a lifetime that My Lan doesn’t want to miss.

“Hurry! This offer won’t last! Terms and conditions apply. See Vietnamese Penal Code for further details. Offer does not include commutation of life sentence or any special treatment in prison including flavoring for rice ration,” the judge did not say while speeding up his voice really fast for the terms and conditions part like it was a radio commercial. The actual terms and conditions were not clear from the article, but it does appear that the court requires it in cash, as My Lan’s lawyers said they were working as fast as they could to sell off whatever properties they could.

The problem however is that other assets are tied up in partnerships and what not, making it difficult and time-consuming to cash out – never mind the fact that, as the lawyers have raised, a motivated seller is easy prey for a low-balling buyer. The BBC reports that My Lan, 68, has also been shaking down friends to see who might kick in to help out, which is one way to put someone on the spot.

Kind of a fucked up and pointless situation that even Kafka would’ve found a little extra, to say the least. My Lan is a scumbag and deserves no sympathy, but this seems excessively cruel and sadistic. The BBC mentions that the properties My Lan is trying to sell are luxury condos in Ho Chi Minh City, within Vietnamese borders and thus also the reach of the state for appropriation. They either total $9 billion in current market value or not. My Lan either has enough of the rest of the bill in overseas assets or she doesn’t. Like if it’s a minute before the deadline and her lawyer shows up with a certified check for $8,999,999,999.99 (the BBC says Vietnam’s death penalty system is byzantine and opaque, there’s no telling when she’ll face execution or when the cash is due) then are they going to say no to the money – or are they going to accept it and execute her anyway?

For a site that it very much the product of an internet environment in which commenters regularly call for American white collar criminals to be flayed in the streets, Vietnam’s ghoulishness here is pretty remarkable in that it’s got us feeling a modicum of sympathy for their piece of shit native daughter. Strip away all the dimensions of the wealthy buying their way out of consequences for their corruption, the moral questions of capital punishment, and you still have a state that is pissing on its own face with how they’re handling this. How are we supposed to take them seriously on the gravity of this crime when they’re so take it or leave it on the money? Execute her or don’t, appropriate her domestic assets and force her to cough up the foreign ones or don’t. The penalty and the restitution shouldn’t be linked, but even if they have to be, the court should at least accept the fucking titles in lieu of cash, turn a profit for their state bank that supposedly got hosed badly.

Forcing her through a rat maze of real estate sales and paperwork, and her lawyers to pick up the phone and say “Hey Mr Thuc, would you happen to have an extra $1.5 billion lying around? Ms My Lan could really use your help, even though you’ll never see her again. Yeah, you’d never see her again that way too, but at least she’d still be alive, you know. You’d have her eternal gratitude,” is not justice, it’s a torture that makes tossing people out high-story windows look merciful by comparison.