Or her gender, which was also my point. Viva la This Old House!
Yes, true! I totally agree.
Actually, I always thought Bob Villa was a prick too. Norm is okay though, he doesn’t condescend.
Martha is being charged under 18 USC sec. 1001, which makes it a crime to lie to a federal agent. This is a tricky little law, because it makes it illegal to lie to any federal official, at any time, whether under oath or not. (Conversely, federal officials can lie to us with impunity. Quel ironique!)
This law can be applied in some fairly questionable circumstances. Say, for instance, a couple of SEC investigators come and interview you at your home. The interview is not taped and just one of the investigators takes notes, and doesn’t do it very well. The investigators go back to the office and use those notes and their joint recollections to distill an official report on the interview. But what happens when what you said and what they’ve written into the report are in conflict? It’s your word against the feds, and guess whose word carries more weight?
Worse is when you’re subpoenaed by the feds to give testimony after such an interview. They expect you to testify in line with the what their official report says, but you know that the report is not an accurate representation of your version of events – which is, of course, non-verifiable. Unless you testify in line with what the report says, despite its inaccuracies, you can be charged with a violation of this law because the report is on record and given the presumption of truth, so any testimony that is not completely on point with that true report is a lie.
This is a handy statute to use to “get” someone when the initial crime that they are suspected of cannot be proven – as in this case, a criminal insider trading violation cannot be pinned against Martha, but by golly, she must’ve lied to someone at some time, so let’s get her on that.
Martha sold approximately 4000 shares of ImClone for a net profit of just under $250,000. The freefall of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia stock since these accusations have started flying have now cost her close to $400 million, an exponentially greater amount than any fines the SEC could have ever imposed if the transaction was deemed illegal. She’s now being charged under a “getcha” statute.
Meanwhile, the daughter of Sam Waksal (CEO of ImClone - that spelling of his name is probably wrong) who was on the same plane as Martha when she made her fateful “sell” order also ditched her ImClone holdings that same day. She sold 400,000 shares. She is not under any SEC investigation and no charges are pending against her at all.
Interesting but almost entirely ignored point underlying this entire issue: the reason why Martha, Ms. Waksal and others were dumping ImClone stock was because the FDA was about the announce that the company’s cancer drug was not going to be approved. That drug has now been okayed for use, despite a considerable lack of any new empirical data regarding its efficacy. Politics held up the drug’s approval, and who knows how many cancer patients have suffered or died as a result. This is a far bigger scandal than a 4,000 share stock transaction could ever be, but no one is talking about it. :rolleyes: