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Non-Tech : Martha Stewart -- Scourge or Scapegoat -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: yard_man who wrote (117)	3/9/2004 4:39:13 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 165

Bush's Justice Department spent lots of time (and money) going after Martha Stewart BUT his father's Justice Department didn't really monitor his GW Bush's questionable trading...Anyone think our president has received 'special treatment'...fyi... Message 19894263

To: yard_man who wrote (117)	3/9/2004 4:53:31 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 165

Martha Stewart's Conviction Sends the Wrong Message By Allan Sloan The Washington Post Tuesday, March 9, 2004 washingtonpost.com The Martha Stewart case creeps me out. And I'm not a Martha fan. I don't like Martha Stewart. I am congenitally unstylish. I've spent my career trying to help people without connections understand what's going on so that they have a chance of getting a fair shake from the connected and the powerful: the people like Stewart. Heck, I even criticized greed and overreaching during the '90s, when most of journalism was kissing up to (now-busted) dot-com billionaires and (now-disgraced) celebrity chief executives and (now-humiliated) analysts who never saw a stock they didn't like. But the Stewart case bothers me, big time. First, I don't consider Stewart's real misdeeds -- stupidity and greed and cluelessness -- to be criminal offenses. Second, people are treating the Stewart case as seriously as Enron when it's really over trivia. Look, Enron and WorldCom and Global Crossing and Adelphia have done huge damage. Thousands of people lost their jobs and lifetime savings as a result of this corporate misbehavior, stockholders lost vast amounts of money, creditors were cheated, and entire communities were so damaged they may never recover. These things aren't as mediagenic as the Stewart trial, and don't offer the same malicious glee people get from watching an icon crumble. But they're a helluva lot more important than Stewart's case, which has used up so much journalistic oxygen. Stewart's trial wasn't about corporate misbehavior. It was about misleading the government, which was investigating her for a crime -- insider trading -- that she was never charged with. If Stewart weren't such a big name, who'd care about this stuff? For heaven's sake, when a cop pulls you over for going 70 in a 55-mile-per-hour zone and you say you didn't know how fast you were going although you damn well did, you're lying to an investigating officer. If you take $520 of charitable deductions on your income tax but can document only $500 of them, it can become tax fraud. If the government decides to put your life under a microscope, do you think it won't find something? I suspect there's not an adult in the country who would walk away totally unscathed if every aspect of his or her life were investigated the way Stewart's ImClone trading was. The conventional wisdom is that by convicting Stewart of lying and obstructing justice, the government has struck a blow for truth, justice and the American way. It has put the fear of God into people, who will now be forthcoming and forthright. That's the rationale for spending all that time and effort and money prosecuting a coverup when there wasn't any crime. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. The lesson that any thinking person draws from the Stewart saga is that when the government asks questions, run for your lawyer and don't say a word. Had Stewart kept her mouth shut, she'd be okay. In this litigious world, far too many chief executives already listen to lawyers, whose advice is almost always to say nothing. That argument is now more convincing than ever, thanks to the Stewart case, and the flow of information to the public will suffer because of it. The one serious crime of which Stewart was accused -- luckily, the judge threw it out -- arose from her proclaiming her innocence. The government charged her with trying to manipulate the stock price of her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, by falsely saying she was innocent. If there was ever an example of chilling free speech, this is it. Had Stewart sold Omnimedia stock after making her statements, I'd sympathize with the government, overreaching as this charge was. But she didn't sell. All she did was defend herself. Today, the government whacks Stewart for daring to defend herself. Tomorrow, my friend, it could be your turn in the barrel. It doesn't bother me to see Stewart smacked around. If she had an ounce of common sense or self-awareness, she'd have known how smelly her ImClone sale looked and canceled it, retroactively, when the government began sniffing around. Better yet, she could have given the money to charity. Stewart sold her 3,928 ImClone shares for $58 on the day before the company announced that its cancer-drug application had been rejected by the Food and Drug Administration. Had she instead sold at $43.39 -- the stock's lowest point on the first business day after the FDA rejection was announced -- she would have gotten $57,388 less. If she'd donated a nice round $60,000 to a noble cause as an act of contrition to clear her name, you think she'd have ended up on trial? No way. People expect a professional throat-biter like me to cheer the downfall of a powerful and greedy person like Martha Stewart. Sorry, I can't do it. I would be happy if the government had gotten her for cheating people, or some other real crime. But for this? Give me a break. Sloan is Newsweek's Wall Street editor. His e-mail address is sloan@panix.com.

To: yard_man who wrote (117)	3/9/2004 5:07:27 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 165

After Stewart, Higher Stakes ______________________________ EDITORIAL The Los Angeles Times March 9, 2004 What Martha Stewart spent for a Baja getaway ($1,500 per night) and what an angry Stewart sounds like (a lion roaring under water, according to one witness) is dynamite stuff for talk show hosts but has little bearing on the corporate meltdowns that helped to trash the stock market and tens of thousands of employee pensions. All the world knows about "Martha's" conviction, but she's small potatoes compared with the principals in trials underway or about to start — trials involving Adelphia Communications, Tyco International, HealthSouth, WorldCom and Enron. These trials, some being conducted within a stone's throw of the Manhattan courtroom where Stewart was found guilty of lying about the sale of her ImClone Systems shares, must do more than dish. They represent the best chance to assign blame for the white-collar crime spree that exploded as the dot-com and high-tech boom of the late 1990s foundered. There will be plenty of gossipy testimony about what former Tyco CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski spent for the maid's shower curtain ($6,000) and what former Adelphia Chairman John Rigas' son blew on a golf club membership ($700,000). The juicy stuff might keep jurors awake as prosecutors explain the accounting schemes that were concocted to mislead securities regulators. And, unlike in Stewart's case, the dishing is germane because investors had to pick up the tab. But extravagance was a symptom, not the cause, of the accounting scandals. Prosecutors must unravel what went wrong and clarify what role the corporate chieftains played, or the shower curtain will end up as just an arcane answer in a trivia board game. That's why federal and state prosecutors have been pressing hard for guilty pleas from highly placed and well-compensated subordinates. Former WorldCom Chief Financial Officer Scott D. Sullivan, for example, pleaded guilty last week to three fraud charges, and former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey K. Skilling earlier pleaded guilty to fraud charges. Testimony from Sullivan and Skilling largely will determine what history remembers about former WorldCom Chief Executive Bernard J. Ebbers and former Enron Chairman Kenneth L. Lay. Stewart's trial stemmed from a cover-up of a stock trade that netted about $50,000. The former stockbroker who founded a publicly traded company clearly should have known better. That said, the fiendishly complicated trials of Ebbers and friends are the main event. Even those who mock Stewart's chinchilla scarf hope she won't end up alone in wearing prison blues. latimes.com

To: yard_man who wrote (117)	3/9/2004 5:14:47 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 165

When Silence Isn't Golden _____________________________ Martha Stewart's failure to testify holds a lesson for other celebrity defendants. COMMENTARY The Los Angeles Times March 9, 2004 By Jonathan Turley - a professor of law at George Washington Law School and a criminal defense attorney. _________________________ According to some of the jurors in the Martha Stewart case, they hoped their guilty verdict would send a message to the rich and powerful. It is more likely, however, to send a message to a much smaller group: Stewart's co-celebrities facing trial for crimes ranging from murder to rape. Stewart is vivid proof that the price of silence for a celebrity defendant can be conviction. For, say, Kobe Bryant or Michael Jackson, the Stewart trial offers a textbook example of how not to construct a defense. The decision not to have Stewart testify in her own defense followed a conventional strategy. Defense lawyers are risk-averse; they usually prefer to play the cards they have rather than risk giving the government a better hand. Silence is a strategy that is normally adopted when you are more concerned about losing rather than gaining ground. In this case, however, they held a bad hand. The trial was not going well. The defense had failed to significantly rebut the testimony or the credibility of key prosecution witnesses, and, by the time the government closed its case, the odds of a conviction were high without a dramatic change — a witness who could reshuffle the deck. There was only one possibility, and that was Stewart herself. Having Stewart testify would clearly have been a high-risk move, the ultimate legal Hail Mary pass; it might have yielded a hung jury, with one or two jurors willing to hold out against conviction. Stewart's lawyers had obvious reasons to keep her off the stand. They wanted to avoid the personal and professional embarrassment of a cross-examination and, particularly, a cross-examination disaster. She would have faced a series of extremely difficult questions: For instance, why did she change a critical computer message from her broker and then change it back? More important, Stewart had been portrayed as a petty tyrant, a boss with a nasty side who relished every vice of power short of beating her underlings with a riding stick. To the jury, she was worse than a stranger; she was a menace. If those personality traits appeared on the stand, she might assure her conviction. A trial, however, isn't about the defendant but about the jurors, and jurors want to hear from the accused. They often view themselves in the shoes of both the victim and the alleged perpetrator. They want to know why an act occurred, but, more important, whether they would or could commit the same act under such conditions. Stewart needed their empathy. Of course, to successfully testify, the famously perfectionist Stewart would have had to reveal her vulnerabilities, her imperfections. For instance, was it a humbling level of understandable fear and confusion that caused her to change that computer message? In the days since the verdict, a few jurors have revealed that at various points they indeed felt sorry for Stewart. Her unwillingness to speak for herself surely prevented her from capitalizing on such feelings. Stewart and her lawyers should have heeded history. Celebrity criminal defendants who have testified have done well. Indeed, their training and experience in maintaining public images can be highly effective on the stand. Fatty Arbuckle testified in his murder trial. He was ultimately acquitted after a series of hung juries. Errol Flynn testified in his statutory rape trial and was acquitted. Charlie Chaplin testified in his Mann Act trial and was acquitted. (O.J. Simpson didn't, but then he was assisted by one of the worst prosecutions in history.) The lesson of the Martha Stewart verdict may be most relevant for basketball star Kobe Bryant, who faces rape charges. In a he-said, she-said case, "she" will often win if "he" says nothing. To remain silent after the victim goes through grueling testimony can easily alienate a jury. To testify or not to testify may be a more difficult question for Michael Jackson. There is no doubt that the jury will want to hear from him. However, because of his eccentricities — his gender-bending persona, for instance, isn't likely to resonate with an average jury — his attorneys will be disinclined to put Jackson on the stand. The prosecution will surely portray him as a freak who abused children brought to him under the false inducement of care and sympathy. His silence would leave such images largely unchallenged. Watch for the defense to attack the victim's mother with particular viciousness, trying to reduce the need to put Jackson on the stand. In retrospect, there is an ultimate irony in the conservative defense strategy adopted by Stewart and her lawyers. As one of the nation's most successful businesswomen, Stewart was known for her aggressiveness and boldness in the marketplace. She made more than a billion dollars selling herself to strangers. Yet that chutzpah failed her when it counted the most: when she didn't take the opportunity to sell herself to a jury. For defense lawyers and defendants, the court record — Martha Stewart Litigating — should be required reading in the months to come. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- latimes.com

To: yard_man who wrote (117)	3/9/2004 10:04:41 AM
From: Labrador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 165

>>if she did lie -- she lied about a non-crime.<< Lying to the gov't is a crime [even if it was about a non-crime]. Plain and simple. She should have not spoken to the gov't and brought in her counsel. A lesson all should learn. I am sure that Martha now will be wide open for civil damages.

To: yard_man who wrote (117)	3/9/2004 10:46:08 AM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 165

Martha Stewart was prosecuted for the same reason that Ken Star was appointed as special prosecutor. The idea is to take a law and distort it to such an extreme that the officials and the public will lose their taste for any more prosecutions. Just as the absence of a special prosecutor law has given Bush a pass, the Martha Stewart case will lower demands for more cases of insider crimes, giving the Ken Lays of this world the protection they paid for. TP