[spaceman]

Securities fraud and obstruction of justice......it's a good thing

 

[bootman]

Personally I don't care.

What gets me mad is I wish they would go after the Enron people with this much fervor.
Martha did what she did so that she wouldn't loose her money.
It really didn't affect people in general.
The Enron mess screwed with people's pensions and savings.
Now they should get jail time.

 

[elrod-tom]

The title should be SHOULD Martha Stewart do Jail Time...not will she.

Personally, I think that she will. The feds HATE obstruction of justice, especially by well connected society doyenes like Ms. Stewart.

She screwed up badly by trying to sweep it all under the rug...oh, the irony.

Maybe she can do a nice tv show from her jail cell.

As to whether she SHOULD go to jail, I'm not sure about that one. On one hand, Bootman makes an excellent point. On the other hand, do you suppose that they're handling her a bit more roughly than they would otherwise because she's Martha Stewart, the domestic dominatrix?

I'm thinking yes...but that doesn't mean that she doesn't deserve it just because the Enron folks aren't making license plates yet

 

[radrd]

I certainly hope she will do some time. Will she? I voted yes, but I'm not too sure about that.

 

[ai0tron]

"The Enron mess screwed with people's pensions and savings.
Now they should get jail time."

Agreed 110%


The problem may be that the people involved in the scam go a little to high up. How about friends of GWB?? One of his buddies commited suicide in relation to the Enron scandal. The others, maybe he decided to protect them to keep them from killing themselves.

There was a heartwarming story about a hardworking business owner who had 300,000 invested in Enron and lost it all. All his hardwork gone, his kids had looked forward to a good education now the possibilities are they won't get to go.

Its charming the way the world works.

 

[Welly Wu]

From everything that I've seen and head in the media about this unfolding drama, I can't see Martha Stewart serving jail time. It seems impossible to me because she has all of the determination and financial resources necessary to avoid serving hard time. Part of me believes that the federal prosecutors are engaged in a sort of "witch hunt" against her because she represents the American Elite. I think that they are going after her and are sticking to their guns about her serving jail time because they feel like they failed to imprison the executives at ENRON, WorldCom, etc. Plus, she really is quite a bitch so that would be extra dibs for them. Remember Leona Helmsley? I vaguely recall that her version of serving jail time was to be confined to a country club setting. She ain't never seen the inside of a 6'X4' cell.

On the other hand, there is no doubt in my mind that Ms. Stewart did commit a crime. She probably engaged in insider trading but proving that beyond a reasonable doubt in a court is extremely difficult because all of the talking heads are saying that it comes down to proving who said what or hearsay. However, she did lie to federal investigators and she did try to cover up her mess. To me, it seems like perjury and obstruction of justice just like what the talking heads are saying on tv and radio. But, the question is what is the appropriate form of justice/punishment for such a crime? Part of me thinks that the federal prosecutors are looking for a scapegoat albeit a very famous and rich one in this particular case. I think that they are frustrated by the appearance that select members of the American Elite -- ENRON execs, famous people, billionaires -- aren't being punished hard enough for their crimes. Yet, there is a key difference: Ms. Stewart made an incredibly dumb financial decision to dump her shares of ImClone. That effects her pocketbook and not anyone else's (after all, how many Head-Fi members can afford to make that kind of investment like she did when she decided to buy shares of her friend's stock?).

In the end, I just can't fathom not seeing Ms. Stewart finding a way to negotiate a terms of settlement that would preclude serving one second of hard time. C'mon! She has the money, the high powered legal defense team (reminiscent of OJ Simpson), and the connections with the rich and powerful. I think that she will do everything in her power to make an admission of guilt that would not involve serving in a jail cell. So, in a way, she kind of gets away with that. But we all knew that was going to happen.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

She will probably plead guilty and get a sentence to do time in some minimum security lock-up. She'll never see the inside of a real jail. She's too rich for that, and like lots of the rich people, will never get that harsh of a sentence.

I personally think she should do time and pay for what she did with jail time, but am not sure it is necessary in her case.

 

[ai0tron]

LOTS of people engage in insider trading. Yes it's unfair, but how would you feel if you knew a company was going under and your best friend had a million shares invested in said company? Are you going to just let that person lose all that they ever worked for? It would pretty harsh, Id tip my friend off and Id hope that he/she would tip me off as well.

 

[Neophyte]

Yep I can see her doing time. It was funny. It was on a mad tv skit about a year ago

 

[dd3mon]

I don't think she will go to jail - but she should. She committed a crime, then attempted to cover it up. But when you're famous and have money - get out of jail free cards seem to pop up everywhere.

-dd3mon

 

[zowie]

Will: No. What she is alleged to have done is not serious enough for jail, at least relative to the way the criminal justice system generally punished crimes.

Should: No, fines.

(1) Re the securities part, her broker called, told her to sell, and
she said go ahead. She couldn't care about the $200 grand at stake, certainly not enough to put her tens of millions at risk. That's very different than being one of the traders (or corproate insiders) who has set up an entire scheme designed for purposes of fraud, and on a much larger scale.

(2) Unless something more comes out, the supposed obstruction seems to really be just the result of bad professional advice about how to deal with the Feds when they started investigating.


The irony is, the inside information was wrong.


dd3mon: To some extent you're right, the rich often can worm their way off the hook. But the other dies of the coin is that if this wasn't Martha Stewart, the Feds would never have spent so much time, effort and money investigating the situation to try to nail her.

 

[Wmcmanus]

"Will Martha Stewart Do Jail Time?"

Did O.J.? (S)he with the most money, wins.

 

[Peddler]

Who's Martha Stewart?

Seriously!

 

[elrod-tom]

Quote:

Originally posted by Peddler Who's Martha Stewart? Seriously!

I envy you, man.

 

[elrod-tom]

Quote:

Originally posted by Wmcmanus "Will Martha Stewart Do Jail Time?" Did O.J.? (S)he with the most money, wins.

Only if the Domestic Dominatrix can get a sympathetic jury of her peers. Unfortunately for her, it's going to be hard to find a jury of anal retentive, pretentious, society wanna-be east coast women to populate a jury. You don't really think that anyone else has a soft spot in their hearts for her, do you?