Winston "Vibert" Tutein is a professional criminal. He keeps getting caught, but that hasn't interfered with his career.

He has been arrested 24 times on 43 charges since 1988.

Winston "Vibert" Tutein

He has spent less than 14 months in jail.

Had he been convicted on all 43 charges, Tutein, 34, would have faced 285 years in prison. Lenient plea bargains frequently helped him go free, but that wasn't all: Police time and again failed to do basic work on his cases and prosecutors frequently let the cases slide.

In a 1990 plea bargain, for example, prosecutors agreed to drop four charges, including drug possession, in exchange for Tutein pleading guilty to attempted grand larceny. He had faced 20 years. He got six months.

In all, Tutein was sentenced to 22 months, but because he was allowed to serve a four-month term concurrently with another term, his sentence amounted to 18 months. Of that, he served no more than 14 months, less than one-half of 1 percent of the time his charges could have brought him.

These are the charges he faced:

• Grand larceny, 9 counts.
• Burglary, 6 counts.
• Assault and battery, 6 counts.
• Contempt of court, 6 counts.
• Resisting arrest, 4 counts.
• Robbery, 3 counts.
• Escape from custody, 2 counts.
• Domestic violence, 1 count.
• Assaulting a police officer, 1 count.
• Drug possession, 1 count.
• Possession of stolen property, 1 count.
• Parole violation, 1 count.
• Damage to a vehicle, 1 count.
• Disturbing the peace, 1 count.

Tutein has been out of prison since March and has already been arrested three times.

One case has already been dismissed, and two are pending.

Tutein's experiences with the law and justice illuminate all that's wrong with the system.

Tutein, whose rap sheet covers seven pages, had 12 of his cases quashed because prosecutors in the Attorney General's Office asked the court to dismiss the charges they had filed. Why? Mostly, they say, police failed to provide records and evidence.

Four more of Tutein's cases were dismissed because prosecutors themselves slipped up and failed to file complaints.

Only three of his 24 arrests led to prison sentences -- a total of 18 months. He actually served less than 14 months because in each case he was paroled.

And each time he was paroled, Tutein violated the terms of his release. That produced one charge of parole violation, but he has never been punished for it.

And even after his sixth arrest in one year, 1988, Territorial Court Judge Eileen R. Petersen released him on his own recognizance.