Eclipse,
The tzaddik was the Ashkenazi Rashash (Rav Shlomo Shtrassen of Vilna). He lent money to the man who returned it while he (the Rashash) was learning. The Rashash put it in his gemara, turned the page and forgot it. When he was going over his ledger he noticed that the loan was not marked “paid” so he took the man to a din Tora but dropped it when the borrower declared his willingness to swear as he did not want to cause him to take a “false” oath. Of course, everyone believed the Rashash and the man had to leave town. When he went back to the daf he saw the money and remembered. This shows that one must always get a receipt, even from a big talmid chacham.
Regarding the subject of this thread, Wendy Runge committed fraud. The sentence was excessive but not because she is Jewish. In recent years, white-collar defendants in general have received Draconian sentences, even for victimless crimes such as violating some obscure regulation. This is a pendulum swing due to major scandals in which peole who caused great economic harm received at the most a few years in “Club Fed”. Now the pendulum seems to be swinging back as everyone is aware of the injustice as well as social and economic costs of overcriminalization and oversentencing. Hopefully a middle ground will be found.