Posted on 06/06/2003 4:52:30 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
Prosecutorial bullies usually try such cases in the press and then intimidate their victims into 'settling' without bothersome due process.
Believe it or not, the government now charges Martha Stewart with "securities fraud" during that same period because she supposedly tried in vain to prop up her own stock by denying that she was guilty of the crime then charged -- insider trading. Yet the government now admits she was never guilty of that crime. Instead, she supposedly "obstructed justice" (her own threatened prosecution for a nonexistent crime) and made "false and misleading statements" about her reasons for making a perfectly legal sale of ImClone shares. Any jury of passably sane people would laugh this out of court.
It was the "sources close to a Congressional investigation" that defrauded MSO investors a year ago. That political persecution was aided and abetted by the tabloid press, notably The New York Times.
The SEC recycled this government trash and came up with a civil charge of sorts. Yet the SEC's complaint effectively refutes both its own charges and those of the government. The SEC says, "Stewart asked Faneuil for the current market price of ImClone shares and was given a quote of approximately $58 a share. Stewart then instructed Faneuil to sell." That is exactly why Stewart said she sold ImClone that day -- the price was falling fast. Faneuil's now claims he told her that the Waksal family was selling, but not why (Waksal did not say). But the SEC refutes Faneuil's new story too by saying, "Stewart then immediately called Waksal [after selling her ImClone shares], and left the following message: "Martha Stewart [called] something is going on with ImClone and she wants to know what." The fact that she had to ask that question proves Martha Stewart did not know what was going on with ImClone after talking to Faneuil and selling her shares. End of story. Case closed.
The SEC says Martha Stewart saved $45,673 by selling late on December 27 rather than on Dec. 31. SEC attorney Wayne Carlin tells reporters it was "unfair" of Martha Stewart to sell her remaining shares in ImClone so promptly (she had "unfairly" unloaded many more ImClone shares in October). But unfair is not illegal. The smart money had gotten out by Dec. 14, when ImClone was $70, and the smartest money was shorting 77 million shares by then.
It took the government a year to fabricate three new offences, all of which amount to the same charge of giving a supposedly misleading explanation for a perfectly legal stock sale. This newly refabricated case is not about illegal lying at all: Martha Stewart has not been charged with perjury. Perjury is one of the fabled "nine counts" that is not hers, but her broker's. In a more important sense, however, this case has always been about lying. There was Congressional lying a year ago about Martha Stewart's alleged tip from Sam Wacksal. And what little remains of that discarded case is now based entirely on the testimony of a proven liar, Douglas Faneuil. He says he was lying before (when he supported Stewart's recollection) but has converted to telling the truth now (when he supports the government's story). Yet this is a fellow who admits his past testimony has been for sale, and any gift Mr. Faneuil may have gotten from his boss was token change compared to being offered only a misdemeanor wrist slap and let off without even a dollar fine.
So what is Martha Stewart's crime? The New York Times, exemplifying its notoriously creative journalism, now editorializes that Martha Stewart engaged in an "illegal stock trade" and " was tipped by insiders that the Food and Drug Administration was not going to approve" Erbitux. That is just more lying from the source that spread the same lie a year ago.
In reality, Martha Stewart stands accused of saying she could not recall details of a two-minute phone conversation on Dec. 27, 2001, while the government claims to know precisely what she recalled. She also stands accused of sometimes confusing her broker with her broker's assistant. Her broker, in turn, is charged with using two different pens, quite possibly on the same day.
And Martha Stewart herself stands accused of altering a computer record of a phone call, even though she immediately "directed her assistant to return the message to its original wording." Did the government ever really intend to ask a jury to send Martha Stewart to prison for such heinous "offences against the United States"? Not likely.
Prosecutorial bullies are accustomed to trying such cases in the press and then intimidating their victims into "settling" (writing big checks) without bothersome due process. In this non-case, however, the government would be smarter to settle out of court by handing Martha Stewart a big check to compensate for a year of slanderous lies and leaks about her.
If this sleazy mess ever goes to court, the architects of the fiasco will have to sneak out of court under umbrellas to avoid journalists' embarrassing questions.
Alan Reynolds, Financial Post is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute.
Legal experts who doubt Stewart traded on inside information note the tiny profit motive for a woman whom Forbes estimates as worth $650 million. In addition, trading activity leaves a detailed electronic trail, leading some to doubt that Stewart, a former stock broker who also was a New York Stock Exchange director, would take such risk.
This always bothered me..she builds an empire and takes this risk for 'grocery money'?
What part of innocent until proven guilty before a jury of your peers do you not understand? Or do you still believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the infallibility of the FBI and government prosecutors?
Yes, because that information doesn't belong to you, that information belongs to the owners (the same way the vault combination number doesn't belong to the president of a bank even though he "knows" it). And since trading shares on the public market creates such a large pool of owners, that information has to become available to all of them equally and at the same time.
I put the Justice Department in the same category of respect as the IRS and NAMBLA.
If Martha was smart, she'd continue backing Hillary in the hope she can buy a pardon if she needs one just like Mark Rich.
It is this convoluted kind of thinking that leads to a diminution of our rights. The simple statement should be, if the government has evidence of a crime, then it will seek indictment and seek to prove guilt before a jury of the defendant's peers.
Things would work a whole lot better in recent light of the escapades of the FBI and state and local prosecutors, if the public maintained a healthy dose of skepticism.
The problem is that the SEC and FBI need a carcass to nail to the wall for the financial scandals of the last so many years. Being unable, and politically unwilling, to go after the folks who defrauded the investing public of probably a couple of trillion dollars cumulatively they go an try to make an example of MS.
In my book this is no sale.
Wait till Monday. I hear there's going to be another big indictment, probably on Monday.
If it makes you feel any better to believe that the law makes it happen this way, go ahead an believe.
But you evidently haven't got a clue what investment bankers do, and how IPOs are promoted.
Here is an interesting document/read... "Request That The Department Of Justice Investigate Whether Ms. Martha Stewart Knowingly Caused Materially False Representations To Be Made To The U.S. House Of Representatives" and hit on some of the appendix...one has 60 marked next to her name/stock..does it show she did have a target of 60 to sell? Will wait for the conclusion.
Holding my unpopular opinion,
f_t_d
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.