The Triangle

Issue date: 7/23/04 Section: Ed-Op

All innocent until proven guilty arguments aside, when someone commits a crime, it is our responsibility as a society to give that person the benefit of the doubt. I held off all judgements on Martha Stewart during her trial and did not assume from the get-go that she did it.

I waited, patiently, until the guilty verdict was read, and then I knew for sure what she had done. Stewart, America's quintessential Susie Homemaker, was convicted in federal court of lying to investigators about attempts at insider trading by both herself and her broker. Since they could not produce enough evidence before the trial to indict her for criminal insider trading indictment, they fell back to their assured conviction of lying to federal investigators.

My caveat to the readers, however, is that I may not see her as criminally guilty of insider trading, but she completely lacks any sense of business ethics and morality. The case against her stemmed from her investment in a company called Imclone Systems, Inc. This company was denied Food and Drug Administration approval privately, and the CEO dumped his stock. Martha Stewart's broker learned of this, and told Stewart to dump the stock. What she should have done was waited until the ruling became public and sold the shares that day of trading.

However, her and her broker concocted an outlandish explanation and sold the stock early for about $51,000. She technically did not break the criminal law, but this is clearly unethical and against all acceptable business practices. The point where she broke the law was when she blatantly lied to federal investigators and made up a story that did not correlate at all to what really happened. Just because she did not get charged for criminal trading does not mean she is an innocent woman. She lied to the government, hindered a federal investigation and, more importantly, cheated the investors by taking advantage of information not privy to them.

Punishments for crimes committed are based on sentencing guidelines directed either to the judge or the jury. Martha Stewart got five months in federal penitentiary, five months house arrest, and two years probation, around the minimum allowed by law. On the same topic, people who plead guilty to crimes get more leniency in their sentence because their contrition and admission of guilt is seen as a step towards rehabilitation. Not only has Stewart not admitted lying to investigators, a crime that has been proven, but she also believes that she did not do anything wrong. She knows what she did, tells the public what she did and still does not see a single thing wrong with it.

Continued...

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