Martha Stewart sold in the open market and lied about it, and was never convicted for making the sale - she was convicted for obstruction of justice - for the lie.
Never believe the NYSE cannot monitor every single transaction that occurs evey single day in every single security in every single brokerage account in the country. As a Series 7 Regisered Representative I live that fact daily.
A Rule 144 sale must be approved in advance as a Registration for Public Trading of previously unregistered shares. Registration means the regulatory bodies are informed.
No doubt the investing (or paper-reading) public will be falsely outraged over this, but legally it can go nowhere.
At this stage in the lighting of the bonfire, that may be enough to kick it to the next level through another couple of news cycles.
>legally it can go nowhere
Right, but Ned in New York and Glenda in Glendive will be pi**ed!
Ahhhhhhhh...but the SEC is going to go after Martha,with a CIVIL suit,for insider trading,once she has served this wee 5 months of jail time. :-)