Money was lost by her stockholders because of the ridiculous charges against her, not because she sold stock in ANOTHER company on the advice of a broker. I'll tell you what, if my broker told me to sell some stock because he heard it was going to get negative news soon I would sell it, as would anybody else. If we are going to go after Martha then let's go after any person who has ever sold stock as a result of "inside information".
Would you lie about it? Would you lie to federal authorities about it?
Would you knowingly and intentionally lie to the investors in your company to prop up your stock price?
My broker does does not call me with non public information.
In order for markets to be fair they have to "arms length" transactions
Some little guy read all the stock reports did his due diligence and lost on IMCLONE probably a much greater % risk than Martha because he did not have that information.
Insider trading rules while nebulous and have many gray areas of contention, should be heavily enforced to protect all