Dan Gould Posted July 17, 2004 Report Share Posted July 17, 2004 So, what kind of "prison" will she be doing her time at, anyway? I am sure she will spend her five months in the lovely Leona Helmsley Suite of the Danbury Federal Correctional Facility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted July 17, 2004 Report Share Posted July 17, 2004 Exactly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kulu se mama Posted July 17, 2004 Report Share Posted July 17, 2004 what everyone has to remember is that martha did not sell her shares into a vaccum. she sold her shares to another person. she had access to information that the buyer of her shares did not, and then she lied about it cover herself. the hilarious part is what a small portion of her fortune she was trying to save. lunch money to me and you. i thought the interview with barbara walters last night was quite revealing. she is still being quite defiant. when asked direct questions about the case she responded with a typical, "i can't comment - that will come out in the appeal." my question is - if you are not guilty why are you holding all of your bullets for the appeal. should'nt you fight as hard as you can not to get convicted in the first place? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted July 17, 2004 Report Share Posted July 17, 2004 I haven't heard anyone say that. However, it is quite possible that she ruined the financial life of one investor. Also, that $50,000 figure is misleading. If you bought right after Martha sold, and sold right after the FDA announcement (which would have been a reasonable thing to do), I believe you would have been out more like $200,000. The stock lost 75% of its value after the announcement, and lost about 90% of its value before it started to rebound in the last quarter of 2002. finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=IMCL&t=5y The man knows about what he speaks ... and his prior posts say it all. It is damn near impossible to convict on insider trading. So you catch them in a lie. Same concept applies to org crime ... hard to nail the higher ups with the specific crime so you nail them on tax evasion. I work in the financial industry too. For the 99% of us that are honest, we want to see these people fry. If you think you are above the law and take a risk, you should pay the price if you get caught. BTW, she started her career as a stock broker ... she knew EXACTLY what she was doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmirBagachelles Posted July 17, 2004 Report Share Posted July 17, 2004 (edited) Insider trading is rampant, and very tough to prove and prosecute. When the feds catch you and you don't cop to it, you're gonna pay an even worse "price" than a fine and profit disgorgement. We should all be glad they prosecute whoever they can catch. Stocks move in advance of news all the time, and large and small investors will always get screwed by this phenomenon. So have no mercy on Martha, she should consider herself lucky she hasn't been prosecuted for the thousand other insider trades she has most likely made. If investors know the executives socially, of the companies they are investing in, you can be sure of a high probability of trading on material non-public info. Edited July 17, 2004 by AmirBagachelles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris olivarez Posted July 17, 2004 Report Share Posted July 17, 2004 Oh hell she'll probably not do a day which renders most of this moot. The more financial resources the more justice. That's how it is in this country. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted July 17, 2004 Report Share Posted July 17, 2004 (edited) If investors know the executives socially, of the companies they are investing in, you can be sure of a high probability of trading on material non-public info. Hey, I happen to be one of those fellows ... and while your point of view may the conventional wisdom, I have never seen it in 20+ years. Why risk everything to make a few stupid dollars? More importantly, it is illegal and unethical. I would venture that the vast majority of corporate executives are honest, hardworking people, with strong ethics or at least enough good sense to know when not to cross the line. Trust me, I am as pissed as anyone about those FUCKS at Enron, WorldCom, etc. I hope they get what they deserve but they probably won't. In the mean time, they make the rest of us out to look like scum. Eric Edited July 17, 2004 by Eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 Exactly. You misunderstand-Danbury is not a country club, but its close to NYC and Westport, and it happens to be where Helmsley served her time, so I put two and two together and flippantly added the "Lovely Helmsley Suite". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 Is it one of those "minimum security" units? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doubleM Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 From what I've heard, The unit in which she'll do her time (god willing), is minimum security. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 Check out this article from the NYT about the different drafts of the letter she sent to the Judge. Such remorse! And a completely false description of the acts of her buddy Waksal. She's lucky she didn't send the first letter to the judge-maybe then she'd gotten the upper range of the sentence guidelines. Stewart's Letter to the Judge Shows Up Online, in Two Versions By CONSTANCE L. HAYS Published: July 19, 2004 Online, the public can see a presentencing letter that Martha Stewart sent to the judge who oversaw her trial - and, for a while, they could see one she did not send. The unsent letter, posted on the Web shortly after Ms. Stewart was sentenced on Friday to five months in prison and five months of house arrest, was a draft version of the letter she did send. The draft included a long apologia for the behavior of Ms. Stewart's friend Samuel D. Waksal, the founder and former chief executive of ImClone Systems. He is serving a seven-year prison term for arranging stock trades before a critical announcement from ImClone in 2001. But the letter that the judge received made no mention of Dr. Waksal or ImClone. "I am sure and have heard from others that his attempted stock sales were only attempts to stem serious margin calls," Ms. Stewart wrote in the first version. "So far as I know Sam never sold or tried to sell his stock because of fear of non-success - rather he sold for just the opposite reason - because he believed so much in the future of his company that he leveraged his own stock way beyond what any sensible person would do, and a temporary delay, a temporary setback, could and actually did, wipe him out." In the first version, Ms. Stewart also offered an explanation of her own ImClone trade, the one that led to her conviction: it was "not because I was secretly tipped, but because I set a price, made a profit, and knew I could always reinvest if I wanted to. To believe that I sold because Sam was trying to sell is so very, very wrong." The letters appeared on www.marthatalks.com, a Web site that Ms. Stewart set up shortly after she was indicted. The posting of both letters can be traced to public relations people who were trying to stay on top of things, and to the industriousness of Ms. Stewart, who wrote a heart-to-heart to Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum that she delivered the day before the sentencing. "In an attempt to put information out quickly, a preliminary version not sent to Judge Cedarbaum was accidentally posted on the Web site for a brief period of time," a spokesman for Ms. Stewart, George Sard, said. Ms. Stewart wrote both letters herself and included all sorts of detail, including the fact that her perfectionism was inspired by the handbook of the American Poultry Association, and that as a child she read the novels of Willa Cather, Upton Sinclair, Dostoyevsky and Gogol. Originally, Ms. Stewart made reference to one juror in her trial, whom her lawyers accused of having lied on a screening questionnaire. She ended her letter by telling the judge: "My hopes that my life will not be completely destroyed lie unfortunately entirely in your hands." In the final version, the word "unfortunately" had been excised, and there was no mention of the jury. Maybe someone told her that first sentence is not a good way to win friends and influence people ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RainyDay Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 A friend at brunch summed it up for me: Martha Stewart was demonized in the media for whatever she did or didn't do. She seemed to be on trial as much for what she was accused of as well as who she is--meaning successful business woman (read ball busting bitch) based on an industry a lot of people like to sneer at. Men don't get closely scrutinized about the clothes they wear to trial or the value of their briefcase. A lot of the coverage of Stewart was pure bullshit. When some of the charges were dropped, it was "Well, she still did it anyway but they couldn't prove it because those charges are hard to prove." Meaning, if you are charged with a crime, you are guilty of it whether you did it or not. Martha Stewart was guilty in the court of public opinion. Man, in this backward country it is still a crime to be a woman who doesn't take crap from anyone, for not being humble enough, and for not staying in your place. Why should she be contrite? She's going to prison. I don't remember John Gotti being contrite and he's a bloody folk hero in this country. And Gotti is responsible for the deaths of a few people. Whatver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 Get it through your exceedingly thick head, Rainy: She was convicted by a jury of her peers. She's a felon. And she'll never admit to it because she doesn't think the rules apply to her or her friends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RainyDay Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 Get it through your exceedingly thick head, Rainy: She was convicted by a jury of her peers. She's a felon. And she'll never admit to it because she doesn't think the rules apply to her or her friends. Get over the fact that there are women out there more successful than you. You can't put them all in jail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 Get it through your exceedingly thick head, Rainy: She was convicted by a jury of her peers. She's a felon. And she'll never admit to it because she doesn't think the rules apply to her or her friends. Get over the fact that there are women out there more successful than you. You can't put them all in jail. What possibly makes you think I want "women more successful than me" in jail? Get over YOURSELF, Rainy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Larsen Posted July 19, 2004 Report Share Posted July 19, 2004 Martha Stewart is quite clearly guilty of the crime of which she was convicted and deserves what she got. As for women in business, I realize it's a tougher road for them, and coming from a welfare-class background, I believe I can empathize with their struggle towards the top. About half the execs in my company are women, and I feel no less respect for them than their male couterparts. OTOH, having to struggle to reach the top does not justify abhorent behavior, criminal or otherwise. I follow the law and treat other people with respect. Marth doesn't, and now she's going to pay for it. That's all I care to say on this matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmirBagachelles Posted July 20, 2004 Report Share Posted July 20, 2004 Martha is mean, and mean people suck. Who cares if he/she is a woman? She broke the law and she didn't come clean, so now she pays. Know anybody who was ever busted? All you have to do is tell the truth, and generally that will be your lowest price to pay, often just a fine. F*ck Martha and all those who empathize with her victimhood. Everybody in OJ's and Martha's corners are pathetic. We need to send more executive crooks to jail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachel Posted July 20, 2004 Report Share Posted July 20, 2004 (edited) F*ck Martha and all those who empathize with her victimhood. Oh yeah.... Martha's mean... Just seems a little *ironic* that you call Martha mean while you curse anyone who doesn't agree with you. Edited July 20, 2004 by rachel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soulstation1 Posted July 20, 2004 Report Share Posted July 20, 2004 memo to oprah you better watch your ass girl your a billionaire and a sista ss1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe G Posted July 20, 2004 Report Share Posted July 20, 2004 They tried to get her once already in Texas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doubleM Posted July 20, 2004 Report Share Posted July 20, 2004 Good point, Rachel...I am in the camp that thinks Martha is a B-e-e-a-a tch, but no one should shun people for having empathy. That's some f*ucked up sh^t! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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