get away with, to

To escape the usual penalty. This Americanism origi- nated  in  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  at  one  point  also meant to get the better of someone. It was still considered slangy when it appeared in the Congressional Record in 1892: “[They] will have to be content with the pitiful $240,000 that they have already ‘got away with.’”