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Martha Stewart Case Report
My view on this matter
I agree with the jury that Stewart was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Martha was tipped off by her broker as to what was going to happen to the ImClone shares and acted upon learning this in order to sell her stocks to prevent herself from losing money for the shares that were about to plummet.
After doing this, she tried to conceal her guilt in several ways, including the time she went to her assistant and wanted to change the phone log so that a phone message she had sent to Bacanovic would not show her guilt but appear innocent instead. She also lied to her investigators about the facts of the case and by doing so, she obstructed justice.
She has been interviewed twice by federal investigators and SEC investigators and tried to lie about the facts of the case, claiming that she had planned to sell the ImClone shares if they were traded in a certain value or a lower one than that. However, investigators found discrepancies in her testimony and in Bacanovic, and it is very clear that she was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Being the clever woman that she was, she had to have known that what she was doing was wrong and criminal, but chose to do it anyway and afterwards try to conceal any evidence of it occurring.
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