MSO: Halted & Guilty

In my mind, the Prosecutors wanted to go after Martha Stewart for Securities Fraud, all along. The problem was that it was going to be rather difficult to prove such an allegation, and it was eventualy thrown out by the Judge on the basis that it was "too weak to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt."

The Prosecution obviously added Obstruction of Justice because it is easy to prove. Yet, what they really wanted ( in the big picture ) was to have a potentially all-encompassing weapon to use against any chief executive of any company who makes sweeping declarations in regulatory findings. Such a precident would have hugely different consequences any time that a CEO would speak.
 
Quote from thetraderprofit:



In my opinion she deserves at least 5 years, but will probably not get that much time. She will be coddled, and whatever sentence is given there will be complaining that it was too stiff, when in fact it will be too lenient. We'll see if this judge treats her like other defendants.
More...


How does she deserve 5 years for lying about a call that she (the customer) got from her broker advising her to sell her remaining shares in a stock that she had been selling already? She deserves a slap on the wrist, it is her moron broker who deserves the jail time.
 
Is that she will receive 6 months to a year, max at Danbury, CT.

It is not a tough place to do time.
There are 4 roll-calls each day and you get plenty of food that is hot when it is suppose to be, and cold when it is suppose to be.
No big barbed-wire fences, and you can roam around as much as you wish, just don't decide to roam past the edge of the property otherwise you will wind-up doing a whole lot more time than you were initially charged with!

For Martha, it will be a huge reality check because you live in a "communal" dormitory setting . . . gang showers, bunkbeds, etc. just like in a military setting.

The biggest thing to deal with:

Boredom
 
I was wondering.....can K-Mart now sue Martha for not abiding by her contract with them? She had a responsibility to maintain a good public image as not to damage K-mart.

Kinda like the Steve thing with Dell ....dude' your gettin a dell....well Steve thought it also met.... dude....your gettin a high.....

Dell dropped him like a "cup of hot coffee at Mcdonalds"........


Michael B.
 
Wag:
>First off, I agree with everything that Turok has said
>with regards to the Feds case against Martha Stewart.
>He obviously has a tremendous amount of insight into the
>Rule of Law than most of us here.

Thanks Wag. What there is of it comes from putting my decade plus partner through a very expensive law school in the mid '90s. I figured if I was paying I would at least learn something myself.

JB
 
>Is that she will receive 6 months to a
>year, max at Danbury, CT.

ClubFeds ain't what they used to be, but they are still well above average cush.

In the late '80s/early '90s when Boeski, Mitnick and Banano were doing time in the Lompoc ClubFed the facility included:

Long(1mile) and short(1/8mile) running tracks
Well maintained softball field with bleachers
Indoor gym with full NBA size basketball court
Racquet ball court
Tennis courts
World class workout facility with all the latest in weight and cardio gear
Bocci court
Pool tables
Large shop for inmate projects (Martha would love that)
Horseback riding
Driving range

And as Wag points out, no bars, no locks, no fences.

I hear they're not quite as cush these days.

JB
 
Quote from waggie945:

Secondly, "Obstruction of Justice" is indeed a crime. I am rather puzzled as to some of the logic on this thread that believes that it is not, and thus Martha Stewart should somehow go unpunished.

Waggs, we are obviously on opposite sides in this debate. Yes, of course you are right about "obstruction of justice" being a crime. However, it became obvious to many that there is wide latitude for the the justice system to abuse this law to inflict punishment on those it has a dislike for and that it cannot prove the actual allegations it seeks.

Thirdly, last time I checked, the SEC does in fact have the opportunity to charge Martha Stewart and her broker Peter Bakonovic for insider trading, which they actually did back in June of last year. My guess is that this charge will now move forward.

At this point, any other charges that may be brought about insider trading are irrelevant to this discussion of the fairness of the trial just ended. Let them make their insider trading case but not this ridiculous "you lied to us so we're sending you to jail" bull.

Fourthly, with all due respect, my goodfriend Pspr is wrong when he states that "it is not illegal to lie to most state and city investigators". Ever hear of making False Statements to a Peace Officer? I have. And does it ever get prosecuted? Yes it does!

Yes, some jurisdictions do have 'false statement' laws. But, many do not. When you are the subject of an investigation, I belive you should not be at risk of prosecution for your statements alone. That is my opinion of what the law SHOULD be. Did you read one of my earlier posts about how the police are permitted to lie to suspects during interrogation in an effort to obtain confessions? And, of the youngster who falsely confessed after such interrogation? I guess it is OK for the police, FBI, Congressmen, Senators, Presidents, etc. etc. to continue to lie to us?

Fifth, Stewart's attorney, Robert Morvillo is a moron. He put on a "bare-bones" defense in that he called only one witness and questioned him for just 20 minutes . . . and when it came to cross-examining the most damaging testimony of all, from Stewart's secretary Ann Armstrong ( a government witness ) who stated that Martha tried to delete the phone message from Peter Bacanovic about ImClone back on Dec. 27, 2001, Morvillo gently cross-examined her and then never undermined Armstrong's testimony in Morvillo's closing argument.

This is absolutely true, unless he some how pulls a rabbit out of the hat with a miracle appeal.

Sixth, Stewart is not being jailed because she stated that she "couldn't recall" her conversation with Sam Waksal, as a poster stated earlier. She is being jailed because the Jury found Stewart's secretary credible. She is being jailed because the message from Bacanovic . . . "Peter Bacanovic thinks ImClone is going to start trading downward" was later partly erased by Stewart following a telephone conversation with her lawyer, so said Armstrong. All the Jury had to do was ask the rhetorical question, "Gee, why did Martha want that message to be deleted?" Furthermore, the Jury found Stewart's girlfriend Marianna Pasternak credible and Stewart's business manager, Heidi DeLuca not.

So, the moral of this statement is that we better not erase messages on our answering systems or we may find ourselves in jail for doing so? ridiculous. And, I beleive that the statement that she couldn't recall the conversation with Sam Waksal WAS part of one of the counts.

Seventh, Stewart is a moron for even allowing this case to get this far . . . especially under such a backdrop over the last several years of Corporate Fraud and Wall Street greed. Her arrogance did her in. It is really as simple as that.

Probably, but if you were sure you were not guilty of securities fraud even if the full facts were discovered, wouldn't you want to be exonerated instead of copping a plea and paying possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars or more and being presumed guilty in the media?

The fact of the matter is that the Attorney General Bill Lockyer is not simply ignoring what San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome has been doing with regards to allowing marriage licenses to be given out to members of the same-sex, as Pspr has indicated. Lockyer has already asked the California Supreme Court to decide the legality of same-sex marriage. The legal process just takes time . . .

Yes, but. As I stated before, the liberal Cal. Supremes refused to halt the activities of the SF mayor pending resolution through the series of court reviews that are going to take quite some time even though it is in violation of state law as it is now. This is nonsense. And, unlike AG's in another state, Lockyer took quite some time to act then replied with childish statements and dragged his feet when asked to take action by the Governor.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1077934257312_73343457?s_name=&no_ads=

P.S. If I had been on the jury that convicted Martha, it would have ended with aquittal or a hung jury because I beleive that a jury has the right and obligation to find for the defendant when it is obvious that a conviction would not serve justice inspite of the law.
More...
 
Pspr:
>As I stated before, the liberal Cal. Supremes refused to
>halt the activities of the SF mayor pending resolution
>through the series of court reviews that are going to
>take quite some time even though it is in violation of
>state law as it is now. This is nonsense.

It may be nonsense to you, but it's the way the system was designed to work and it's working as designed. Unless there is a time factor related to damages (Your Honor, if the defendant is allowed to continue the activity while the wheels of justice turn there will irreparable damage to my client) then the Supreme court is NOT SUPPOSED to intervene.

The Supreme Court of California (not familiar with other states but suspect they are similar) is tasked with resolving cases that have been filtered through the lower courts. A determination of emergency must be found for it to act otherwise. In this case an emergency could not be shown so it's in the low courts for now.

JB
 
Quote from Turok:

Not all of your points are flawed, but that first one sure is. In our intentionally adversarial legal system the attorneys on BOTH sides right or wrong are allowed to present hypothesis and then the jury is tasked with sorting fact from fiction. The feds didn't "lie to the courts" any more than Martha's attorneys lied to the courts by proclaiming her innocence. (though I DO agree that the fraud charges that were rightly dropped were absurd)

We allow prosecutors and defense attorneys great latitude to propose damning/defensive scenarios. I would be in fear of a legal system where the legal representatives on either side were exposed to legal action merely by presenting charges that are later dropped/acquitted or theories of defense that are deemed insufficient by a jury.

JB
More...

There is a big differnence, in that a judge ruled that no reasonable person could possibly find Stewart guilty of the "stock fraud" charge beyond a doubt. There is a huge difference between an honest dispute of opinion between guilt/innocence of the defendant, and wilfully bringing a charge you know to be BS, purely for tactical reasons. The law is about dispensing justice, not scoring points or getting in the papers. Anyone who pressures a defendant with a trumped-up charge is guilty of creating a kangaroo court, banana-republic show-trial justice, and should either hang or rot behind bars for the rest of their natural life.

There is a great case that the prosecution brought the "stock fraud" charge purely for intimidation reasons. That IMO should be a major criminal offence, perverting the course of justice. It is clearly arbitrary, capricious, unjust, and immoral. Any public employee bringing such a charge should go to jail for a very long time for trying to achieve injustice and stabbing their employers (the public, who are paying hard-earned tax dollars to these guys to achieve JUST results in the courts) in the back.
 
Turok, we are not talking about two individuals or corporations in a civil case. We are talking about blatent violation of an existing state law. And, yes their position is nonsense.

Just as the position of the Florida Supreme court was nonsense during the last presidential election until the Chief Justice finally couldn't ignore the law and justice any more and reversed his position.

P.S. I live in FL, just for the record. AND we are getting off topic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top