Friday, February 20, 2004
Modern day witch trials
It sucks to be Martha Stewart. The government is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecuting her for an insider stock sale that netted her a mere $60,000 more than if she had waited till the next day (after the ImClone bad news had been officially released). The investigation has knocked hundreds of millions of dollars from the net worth of her company.
All this, because she lied about using an insider stock tip. I guess the government was in a bit of a bind. Obviously, Ms. Stewart broke the law. I don't have any doubt that she did, in fact, act on an insider tip. Furthermore, she absolutely refused to admit she did that, so the government couldn't just fine her (there are such things as settling out of court, something Ms. Stewart SHOULD have done, along with loud and public Mea Culpas). The only way to force her to pay for breaking the law was to take her to court.
Still, this seems like an awful lot of money to spend on proving that Martha Stewart is lying. I don't see any alternative given Ms. Stewarts confusing desire to play chicken with the US government. Still, kind of foolish.
If she goes to jail (and she probably will, because it looks like she is going to lose big), it will be more for forcing the government to spend all that money taking her to court rather than just admitting the obvious and putting an end to it.
It sucks to be Martha Stewart. The government is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecuting her for an insider stock sale that netted her a mere $60,000 more than if she had waited till the next day (after the ImClone bad news had been officially released). The investigation has knocked hundreds of millions of dollars from the net worth of her company.
All this, because she lied about using an insider stock tip. I guess the government was in a bit of a bind. Obviously, Ms. Stewart broke the law. I don't have any doubt that she did, in fact, act on an insider tip. Furthermore, she absolutely refused to admit she did that, so the government couldn't just fine her (there are such things as settling out of court, something Ms. Stewart SHOULD have done, along with loud and public Mea Culpas). The only way to force her to pay for breaking the law was to take her to court.
Still, this seems like an awful lot of money to spend on proving that Martha Stewart is lying. I don't see any alternative given Ms. Stewarts confusing desire to play chicken with the US government. Still, kind of foolish.
If she goes to jail (and she probably will, because it looks like she is going to lose big), it will be more for forcing the government to spend all that money taking her to court rather than just admitting the obvious and putting an end to it.
