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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart

by John Cole|  March 5, 20044:18 pm| 25 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Lemme get this right:

The government had no case that Martha Stewart did what they actually accused her of, but was convicted of trying to keep the government from proving that she did nothing wrong, and for that she could spend the rest of her life in jail.

Gimme abreak. I am all for convicting finanacial criminals- but Stewart is getting screwed.

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25Comments

  1. 1.

    andrew

    March 5, 2004 at 4:27 pm

    It is against the law to lie to the FBI and objstruct justice by altering documents. She ordered the alteration of a document after the feds came after her.

  2. 2.

    Chuckg

    March 5, 2004 at 4:32 pm

    It’s not the crime that kills you — it’s the cover-up.

  3. 3.

    Terry

    March 5, 2004 at 4:39 pm

    Don’t forget that lying under oath is perfectly okay if it’s “just about sex” and/or you’re a Democrat.

  4. 4.

    sean

    March 5, 2004 at 4:42 pm

    can someone with more of a legal background than I tell me why it’s illegal to lie to the FBI (if you’re not under oath)?

  5. 5.

    Ricky

    March 5, 2004 at 4:49 pm

    Don’t forget obstruction, Terry!

    Lying to the gov’t and obstruction. First Chris Webber and now Martha Stewart, two supporters of Clinton.

    I guess it’s true that he gets the Caddy while his friends & supporters get the shaft.

  6. 6.

    andrew r

    March 5, 2004 at 4:54 pm

    Clinton was impeached for lying! he didn’t get off scott free…

  7. 7.

    doc

    March 5, 2004 at 5:27 pm

    martha’s a democrat (FOB).

    She’ll get a 2 years TOPS, not life. Don’t over exaggerate.

    She deserves it from reading and following the case. She was on the stock exchange and a stock broker. She *knows* every little rule. She choked and now she’ll pay. I don’t have much sympathy for her.

    The SEC can still followup to nail her with further charges.

  8. 8.

    JohnO

    March 5, 2004 at 5:48 pm

    John, with all due respect it’s the small investors who got screwed when Martha dumped her stock based on a tip that you or I would never get. If you have a 401K or any other stock investment, you lose when people like Martha get the insider information. I’m not sure that the Govt had no case against her on the securities fraud, they may have decided to go against her on the obstruction charges in order to “rightsize” the case and increase the odds of a successful conviction. That they didn’t try her on the fraud case doesn’t neccessarily mean she’s innocent.

  9. 9.

    Terry

    March 5, 2004 at 5:50 pm

    Martha just got lucky, perhaps very, very lucky. CNBC just showed excerpts from a news conference in which one of the jurors said that a decisive factor that weighed in the jury’s decision came when Stewart failed to take the stand. The juror said that they viewed this “as a slap in the jury’s face.” This flies in the face of Federal jury instructions in which the judge ALWAYS states that the defendant’s decision to testify or not testify should NOT be interpreted by the jurors to mean anything in a dispositive sense. Martha’s lawyer is probably drafting his appeal right now, and is almost assured of success.

  10. 10.

    Aiden

    March 5, 2004 at 7:06 pm

    Nothing like a juror who feels slighted.

  11. 11.

    db

    March 5, 2004 at 8:30 pm

    SEAN

    18 U.S.C. 1001
    http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1001.html

    It is actually a criminal offense to lie, unless you say it to the judge.

  12. 12.

    Kimmitt

    March 5, 2004 at 9:40 pm

    We impeached a sitting President for the same offense. Welcome to the terrordrome.

  13. 13.

    George Ditter

    March 5, 2004 at 10:20 pm

    Re JohnO’ s comment. You might want to read Alan Reynolds’ article that was on NRO in June of 2002 (you have to go to the archives). He lays out the lack of any fraud case as to Martha Stewart. As to the little guy getting hurt, well somebody had already gone short on ImClone to the tune of 77 million shares in Dec. of 2001 so I doubt that any grandma lost her savings when MS sold, if anyone is getting butchered in this deal it is the shareholders of MSLO, got any of that in the old portfolio JohnO, don’t forget to the thank the government for helping you out

  14. 14.

    JohnO

    March 5, 2004 at 10:48 pm

    George, I didn’t say any little old Grandma lost her sole source of income. My point is that Martha had information unavailable to the normal investor that allowed her to dump Imclone shares to buyers who didn’t have the same information. All of the buyers of Martha’s shares were essentially defrauded becuase they were being sold an overvalued stock. Martha knew it, they didn’t. She got caught. I can’t muster any sympathy for her.

  15. 15.

    George Ditter

    March 6, 2004 at 12:06 am

    Go back and read the Reynolds article, written prior to Martha’s indictment and see if you still believe she had information that other investors didn’t have.

  16. 16.

    Troll

    March 6, 2004 at 2:57 pm

    At least her lies didn’t lead to an costly and deadly war!!!

  17. 17.

    Richard Eurich

    March 6, 2004 at 8:12 pm

    When Martha sold those IMClone shares she had information that the buyers on the other side of that trade probably didn’t have.

    However, those buyers had the responsibility of knowing that the FDA was going to rule on ImClone’s Erbitux anti-cancer drug within the week. Either they did not know that ImClone had a drug pending approval with the FDA, or they were aware of it, but were betting that the drug would get approved.

    They deserved to lose their money in the first case because they were trading stock from a position of ignorance. They deserved to lose their money in the second case because they made a bad bet.

    I think that when you make a trade in the stock market you take responsibility for researching that trade. I feel very little sympathy for the people who Martha “screwed.” However, I can’t feel too bad for Martha either. As a licensed stockbroker Martha should have known better than to talk about insider trading over the phone. Although she is being unfairly victimized because of her celebrity status, a bit of thoughtful preparation could have allowed her to avoid the situation entirely.

  18. 18.

    rkb

    March 6, 2004 at 8:24 pm

    I have a hard time seeing Stewart as an innocent victim. If we want to talk about responsibility for knowledge, as a former stock broker Steward knew perfectly well what was at stake when her buddy was under investigation for insider trading … her lies were indeed designed to impede an investigation and were therefore culpable.

  19. 19.

    Scott S

    March 8, 2004 at 1:39 am

    She got what she deserved. Sad, but true.

  20. 20.

    peggy

    March 8, 2004 at 1:47 am

    Martha will be just fine. She has to pay for the underhanded things that she did. However I beleive that the best way to solve this would be for her to pay back all of the gains that she made to the rest of the stockholders that lost out. Maybe three times fold….. now that would teach her not to do it again. Sending her to some posh prison where she will be in protective custody won’t teach her anything. The prisoners will end up taking all of her money, it might as well go to the stockholders who lost it in the first place….they didn’t break the law.

  21. 21.

    Random Numbers

    March 8, 2004 at 7:16 am

    If one of the jurors said what I think he said, any good -hell any BAD- lawyer can get the entire conviction tossed. You CAN NOT use a defendant’s lack of testimony against her.

  22. 22.

    Robin Roberts

    March 9, 2004 at 5:28 pm

    It is however difficult under the Federal Rules to enquire into the jurors’ deliberations in most cases. Federal Rules of Evidence 606(b).

    “Upon an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify as to any matter or statement occurring during the course of the jury

  23. 23.

    cookie

    April 15, 2004 at 2:23 pm

    Martha is just like one of us now. When you break the law which she did for all of those who has not realize it yet, you have to pay the price. This could happen to you and if it did would you still think that she is not guilty

  24. 24.

    bob

    April 18, 2004 at 9:37 pm

    no comment

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. What Mark V. Shaney Has To Say says:
    July 17, 2004 at 2:25 pm

    On Martha Stewart and Prison

    First, Martha Stewart Omnimedia stock up nearly 37 percent. Specialists suggest the light sentence lifted the uncertainty around the company’s…

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