A little overboard with the “unspeakable”, don’t you think? I read Mandela’s autobiography. His incarceration was physically cruel and spiritually exhausting, but it wasn’t “unspeakable”, for heaven’s sake.
White collar crime and she only gets 5 months? This is a burden because she got caught?
if she had not done A,
there would not be B.
For those of you that think she was robbed and this about her being a woman; throwing out words like only 40k. Check out Mikey Moore’s work back when he did TV Nation. He asked people on the street, what costs us more money, street crime or coroporate crime? TV Nation (1994)
“Corporate Crime causes more deaths and costs you more money each year than all the street criminals combined? Seems impossible, doesn’t it? But it’s true. In 1994, burglaries and robberies cost us over $4 billion in losses, while corporate fraud cost us nearly $200 billion! Or how about this statistic: handguns last year caused around 15,000 deaths. Unsafe working conditions on the job and occupational diseases caused more than 56,000 deaths. Why aren’t we as appalled by this as we are when some punk pulls out a gun and shoots a clerk behind the counter? Why is it that when the company that employs the clerk knowingly has faulty wiring in the basement, resulting in a fire that kills the clerk, we don’t feel the same outrage? Or why is it that when some junkie breaks into our home and steals our stereo we want to strangle the bastard, but when the company that makes that stereo conspires with other companies to prevent the cost of CDs from ever going down—thus ripping us off of hundreds of dollars—we don’t call for the same swift justice?”
Well, as I said above, I’m not complaining that she was caught and convicted. This is a good thing. And five months plus two years probation isn’t an excessive punishment - in fact the NY Times article I read said that she received the minimum sentence. What I said earlier was that I disagreed with people who wanted her punishment to be much harsher, people who generally seem (at least to me) that they want to throw the book at her because she’s a wealthy woman who is perceived by some as a “tough” “bitch”.
Well, I did write that earlier (said that the 40K was small potatoes), and it pained me to do it. I recently graduated from university (in Canada) and have an entry level job paying approximately $25,000/year (CDN). With my debt load right now (assorted student loans and other loans - probably $30,000 total) I won’t be in the black for five or six years at least, and that’s assuming a very tight, low-expense budget.
However, as you point out, white collar crime generally has a much higher price tag than blue collar crime. $40K is small potatoes for white collar crime. Heck, part of her sentencing (in addition to the jail time and probation) is a $30K fine.
I tried to Google around to see how much the losses due to Enron added up to. I didn’t find much that was definitive, but different articles seemed to indicate that total shareholder losses were at least $60 billion dollars.
I know that Martha Stewart’s situation is different, but if she received five months in prison for $40K, then Ken Lay should get 625,000 years in prison (at a rate of 1 year in prison per $96,000).
This is ridiculous of course. But it puts in perspective how (relatively) small Martha’s crime was, compared to other white collar crimes.
Well, I hope the best for the lady. Mostly, I think she makes the truly inadequate feel inadequite, and that’s a sin that can’t be forgiven.
As with the OJ case, there will be a ton of books by and about the prosecution, the jurors, and the doorman who once thought he got a puny tip from Martha.
Some suggestions for titles…
For the prosecution: “Twenty Years Late, But We Finally Got Here.”
For the jurors: “Triumph of the Hall Monitors.”
Sense we’re in the quibbling mood, I doubt Mandela or his family would have been satisfied with a characterization of his very long incarceration as “spiritually exhausting.” Glad to see you got the gist of my argument.
Some people in this thread seem to have the idea that the jail time is punishment for her insider trading. It’s not. The jail time is the punishment for her * lying* about it and obstructing the investigation. If she had fessed up early instead of committing perjury, stonewalling, and basically telling the investigators to go fuck themselves, she would have spared herself a trial and jail time and likely gotten off with a “slap on the wrist” fine.
The particulars of what Stewart is charged with are unimportant. It’s like all the Pubbies who say the impeachment of Clinton was never about a blowjob. Bullshit. The simple fact is, Stewart is a high-profile celebrity scapegoat. She HAD to get prison time, so the Amerrikuns could think “we did something about that damn insider trading” while all the Wall Street types who were doing all sort of illegal insider trading (do de term “IPOs” mean anything) get away without the massive investigation and hundreds of trials that they deserve.
I am relieved she only got 5 months.
She got the right amount of time. She got greedy, lied about it, and got caught. Of course she will now face the civil lawsuit side which could be forfiture of all the profit she gained in the trade and additional fines.
So she traded a 40k profit for 5 months in prison/5 months house arrest, 30k fine, pending civil lawsuits, and a boatload of lawyer bills. The funny thing is, if she would of just kept the stock over the longhaul, she would of came out on top. Imclone renewed and got its product approved and by all accounts is an effective treatment.
I do feel sorry for the employees of her company. No one wants to see people lose their jobs. But they have to blame Martha. She’s the one that jeopardized her own company. I don’t feel anymore sorry for her than the drug dealer down the street. Her defiant speech about how it was such a travesty of justice, a personal problem blown way out of proportion, only goes to show that she is sorry she got caught. Not sorry for what it is shes done.
the Justice Dept.s logic in prosecuting Martha …they spent 15 million dollars on this! It will cost us (the taxpayers) over $15,000 just to keep her in jail! This for something that could have been a plea-barganed fine. Stupid!
Meanwhile, Ken Lay (ex ENRON CEO) will probably get off scot-free!
Sometimes the government forgets that it makes no sense to zealously prosecute a $40,000 crook, and ignore this guy who stole BILLIONS! 
What I like most about Martha Stewart is how populist she is, contrary to some people’s perceptions of her as a snob (see above). Through the Martha Stewart Everyday line of products at Kmart, she offers attractive, well-made household goods at affordable prices. I’ve got several myself. And her Everyday Food magazine offers delicious meals that are easy to prepare.
Interesting how you go, in the space of one sentence, from “will probably get off scot-free” (very unlikely), to the government has “ignored” Ken Lay.
In case you haven’t heard, Ken Lay was recently indicted by federal prosecutors on 11 counts that include securities fraud and lying to the public. CNN reported,
And the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Lay in a civil complaint that seeks more than $90 million and to bar him from serving as an officer or director of a public company.
“Ignored”?
She got hammered because she jerked the SEC investigators around, and had the self important foolish arrogance, poor legal counsel, and bad judgment to think things were going to go her way. These people have put millionares and billionaires in jail time and again.
Even reading her (slightly) plaintive letter to the Judge on the Smoking Gun Website she oozes a serious “I’m a most accomplished and important person” vibe. It’s almost funny. She can’t be humble and accommodating even when it was in her best interest to play that part.
Care to wager on that proposition?
First off, while Martha Stewart may have been mostly guilty of doing something at the wrong time, I don’t feel that there was any miscarriage of justice. The woman worked as a professional stockbroker for years, and should KNOW securities law.
If there was any ulterior motive for the prosecution, it’s been to send a message to the securities industry that the Fed is going to start paying more attention in the wake of the Enron mess. Business as usual is over. Frankly, every step down the line she had the opportunity to mitigate the consequences to herself by admitting wrongdoing, and she choose to defend her actions as having done nothing wrong.
And, Kenneth Lay, I think, is likely to spend quite a few years behind bars.
I don’t understand why this thread is more about Kenneth Lay than Martha Stewart. A lot of you seem to be using the speculation (however likely) that Lay will get less time than he should to insist that, thus, Martha should get less time than she should. When did Kenneth Lay become the standard of legat justice? A man who’s only just been indicted, moreover, and the outcome of whose trial and sentencing is still a long way off? Stewart should properly be judged and sentenced on the merits and particulars of her own case. Wouldn’t you find it outrageous, in other words, if Stewart’s lawyers had used that in the sentencing hearing? “Your Honor, Kenneth Lay’s probably not gonna get any jail time at all, so Ms. Stewart shouldn’t either! Plus, the only reason she was convicted is that she’s been persecuted for having a vagina!”
She obstructed a federal investigation–she falsified records to obstruct a federal investigation!–end of story. She’s getting nothing more than a symbolic slap on the rest, and to suggest she’d get off scot-free if she had a penis is just ridiculous.
–on the rest? sheesh. “wrist” of course.
Yes, yes. Stewart was greedy, arrogant, stupid and indifferent to the law. And if I thought the vast majority of Wall Street stockbrokers and other high mucky-mucks were IN ANY WAY different from Stewart in these respects, I wouldn’t believe she’s being scapegoated. The only thing that makes Stewart different from the others is, she is a celebrity.
Most stockbrokers and financial professionals have a very healthy respect and fear for the SEC enforcement division. The penalities for misbehavior are pretty severe. Why do you feel most brokers are thieving cheats?
Becuase I have read accounts in disreputable rags like the Wall Street Journal that it was common practice for stockbrokers at big brokerage houses to offer prospective clients advance info on new IPOs that would make a lot of money in order to get their business, which weren’t offered to other clients until after to IPO was out. Insider trading at its worst, and by all accounts quite commonplace.
Here’s a link to an article which describes the practice, and describes it as “widespread.”
Here’s a link to a ton of articles all of which describe the practice of spinning as widespread.
It is my belief that if Martha Stewart should spend five months in jail for her misbehavior, so should every last stockbroker who ever spun an IPO – and that would be a LOT of stockbrokers, by all accounts.
I don’t know much about Securities regs (though I am a lawyer), but is it insider trading when giving info about a pre-IPO?
Pre-IPO, the company is not publicly held. Is it governed by the insider trading laws?
Anyone know for sure?
As for Lay, I find it interesting that he has become a symbol of everything that is bad in business. I am still open to the notion that he may be guilty of negligence but not intentional actions (re: asleep at the wheel). Before I say “he deserves to go to prison” I’d like to see some evidence. (partially because I always liked the guy. He throw out the first pitch at the new baseball park[then Enron Field] and received a standing ovation similar to ones for Nolan Ryan and Hakeem Olajuwan.) Hell, he probably did it, but I think that his name has become more of a partisan talking point than a legitimate discussion…
astro said:
Ironically, she would not have been convicted at all if she had simply told the feds to “go fuck themselves.”