Word for a person or entity who is permitted by society to do bad/greedy things because they have been charitable

phrasessingle-word-requestssynonymsword-choice

  • I would describe this person or entity as "feeling entitled" by that doesn't exactly capture what I am trying to say.

  • For example: A person who donates a lot of money to some charity gets 'special treatment' from society (or some governing body). As a result this person is able to 'get away with' doing something bad like demolishing a nature sanctuary or treating their employees extremely poorly. Society (or some governing body) turns the other cheek and lets them do bad things just because they have been charitable.

  • I want to use it in a sentence as a statement to say something like "This person's charity does not <insert word I'm looking for here> their greed."

    • Once again "entitle" somewhat fits here but it's not exactly right because I am trying to capture the fact that they are 'getting away with something' only because they have been charitable (or even falsely charitable to be in such a position).

EDIT:

  • Maybe the word I'm looking for could also be a noun to describe someone who does good deeds, but with a hidden agenda. So the good deeds are only done so they can be in a position to do bad things later and get away with it.

EDIT 2:

  • Wow, thanks everyone for all the feedback! A lot of good suggestions coming in. I realize now that a Noun, what this person or entity could actually referred to as, would be best. But all the verb suggestions have been great. Absolve, excuse, justify, sanctify, and a few others fit for my example sentence, but I want to leave the question open a little longer to see if anyone can think of a Noun for this person/entity.
    • Example: "Mr. Rogers has donated millions to xyz charity all so that people would think he was a good guy. It's a shame he did all that just to get the permits to tear down the orphanage. Mr. Rogers is a <insert word here>."
      • I think "swindler" is a good word here but not sure if there is a better word to capture that this was all premeditated and false charity.

Best Answer

The OP is now also asking for a noun that would fit the following text:

Mr. Rogers has donated millions to xyz charity all so that people would think he was a good guy. It's a shame he did all that just to get the permits to tear down the orphanage. Mr. Rogers is a ___________.

One word that would fit here is a whited sepulcher:

a person inwardly corrupt or wicked but outwardly or professedly virtuous or holy
(Merriam-Webster)

This expression originally comes from the King James Version of the New Testament (Matt 23:27):

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

A sepulchre in this context is a room or monument, cut in rock or built of stone, in which a dead body is laid or buried. (The Free Dictionary)

Newer translations tend to render the phrase as whitewashed tombs (see here). For example, here is how the full passage appears in the New International Version:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

Some examples of usage:

Old Muslin D. Lane, who smiles and smirks and bows to and fawns upon his customers, and grinds his clerks into the dust; who hands My Lady to her carriage with gracious, grinning suavity, and grinds the noses of his employees; who irritates, goads and worries his clerks with regulations as petty as they are tyrannical; who exacts constant , unremitting toil to the uttermost second, alike in rain and sunshine. in a store full of customers and a store empty; who pays a man well for doing woman's work, and pays a woman a pittance for doing the same; who plays petty tyrant over the slaves of his counter—he is a whited sepulchre, and his sepulchre is full of those who will confront him at the Great Assize.
G. P. Upton, Letters of Peregrine Pickle (1869) (source)

Property is a whited sepulchre, healthy seeming without, rotten with loss of function within.
E. F. M. Durbin, The Politics of Democratic Socialism: An Essay on Social Policy (1940) (source)

The income of this family was derived mostly from the hire of their slaves, about one hundred in number. Their luxuries were blood-bought luxuries indeed. And yet what stranger would ever have inferred their cruelties from the courteous reception and bland manners of the parlor. Every thing cruel and revolting is carefully concealed from strangers, especially those from the north. Take an instance. I have known the master and mistress of a family send to their friends to borrow servants to wait on company, because their own slaves had been so cruelly flogged in the work house, that they could not walk without limping at every step, and their putrified flesh emitted such an intolerable smell that they were not fit to be in the presence of company. How can northerners know these things when they are hospitably received at southern tables and firesides? I repeat it, no one who has not been an integral part of a slaveholding community can have any idea of its abominations. It is a whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
T. D. Weld, A. Grimké, and S. Grimké, American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839) (source)

"Are you referring to the gentleman who has just been kind enough to come and see me? That is Mr. Townsend."
"Then Mr. Townsend is a thing of evil—he is!" He held up his forefinger to me with a warning gesture. I did not interrupt. "When I came near him I knew him for what he was. I saw right through. He is a whited sepulchre. I saw the blood gleaming on his hand."
R. Marsh, The Crime and the Criminal (1899) (source)

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