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The simple fact is that this lady, who is both a former stock broker and a member of the New York Stock Exchange Board of Directors, knew the law very well: it is illegal to knowingly act upon information about a company that is not available to the public. She knew for sure that Imclone stock was going to take a dive, because she heard about some very bad - and as yet unknown - information from the ultimate insider, the guy who ran the company (and who just happened to be a personal friend). I don't feel sorry for Martha - in an effort to save herself a few tens of thousands of dollars, this lady worth tens of millions or more acted on information that the rest of us didn't and couldn't have had. I personally lost NOTHING on Imclone, but I hope that they throw the book at her. It will set an example for those in similar positions in the future.

Surely, you don't think that no officer of any company does not act on insider information? They all do it. I bet an audit of every company in the stock market would reveal many such instances. Stewart is being scapegoated to hide the fact that this goes on on a regular basis and the feds don't want to bring down the officers of the major companies.

"The simple fact is that this lady, who is both a former stock broker and a member of the New York Stock Exchange Board of Directors, knew the law very well: it is illegal to knowingly act upon information about a company that is not available to the public ..." As a former holder of a license with the Securities and Exchange, I can tell anyone who asks that Martha not only broke the law, she committed an most egregious offense to the process of stocks and securities ethics. She does deserve some punitive action against her, if for no other reason than to send a message that those caught flouting the ethics rules will be prosecuted. Think about it: there are broker folks out there cheating like the dickens, using the hard earned dollars of working citizens. When they're caught, will we excuse their wrongs based on degree of harm to specific people or prosecute them for violating the structure that gives integrity to the system? Martha--though I am a big fan of her and admire her self-promotion--insulted the integrity of the system, a system that must operate on trust to a great degree. She must be held accountable, not given special dispensation. [I said something similar when Speaker Livingstone was exposed for his hypocrisy.] Incidentally, had Martha waited until the trend of the day had started to appear on the stock she dumped, before dumping it, she would have been completely within the law ... and that's damn little to expect of someone as knowledgeable as she!