Always Harsher Sentences. Always.

If ever there were words to leave a person quaking in his boots, it's this: Your sentence was too lenient.

That's what former Wal-Mart executive Thomas M. Coughlin heard today from a federal appeals court in St. Louis that upended his sentence of 27 months of home detention for defrauding the giant retailer.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pronounced the stay-at-home sentence—with time out for doctor appointments and church going—was too light for the gravity of his crime.

Coughlin, who worked for the Bentonville, Ark.-based chain for 28 years, was accused of using nearly $500,000 in company money—through falsified travel vouchers and invoices and use of company gift cards—to pay personal expenses, including hunting trips, car repair, clothing, and alcohol.

However, the trial judge—U.S. District Judge Robert T. Dawson—decided that the former Wal-Mart executive's service to his community and his extensive health problems combined to warrant a lesser sentence.

But an appeals court panel disagreed, ordering him to be resentenced, reasoning that his family ties and his community position "as well as his lofty corporate position of trust and power, exacerbate the nature of his crimes, especially for Coughlin's victims: Wal-Mart, and more generally, American businesses."

Coughlin pleaded guilty to six felonies—five counts of wire fraud and one of filing false tax returns—in January 2006 and faced as much as 28 years in prison and $1.35 million in fines. Instead, in addition to his home stay, he got 33 months of probation, a $50,000 fine and was ordered to pay $411,218 in restitution.

All that didn't sit well with Judge William Jay Riley, who said the sentence was not "within the range of reasonableness," pointing out that Coughlin's net worth was $50 million but he was not required to pay interest on the money he was assessed.

No word from Coughlin or his attorney, Blair Brown, who had argued that sending the 58-year-old former executive could kill him because he suffers from a variety of serious health problems, including hypertension, diabetes and gout. The 330-pound Coughlin also had an electric defibrillator since 2003, after cardiac arrest and has had four other episodes involving his heart.

Even so, the appeals court panel said Coughlin offered no proof that his health needs were so extraordinary that they couldn't be accommodated in prison.

Coughlin, who is also battling Wal-Mart's effort to cancel his multi-million dollar retirement package, found one friend at court—dissenting judge Kermit E. Bye, who agreed that considering Coughlin's health problems, the original sentence should stand.

Elizabeth Olson