Martha Stewart is Guilty

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Guilty on all charges, with Peter Bacanovic guilty on 4 of 5 charges.

Coverage from CourtTV.

And fill in your own "United States of America VS. Martha Stewart" verdict sheet.

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Anyone have any good recipes for baking a file into the center of a cake?

who wants to bet that she never sees any jail time?

I wonder if Dateline will now put young Jayson on the backburner for tonight's show? If not, too bad for Jayson, 'cause no one's gonna be watchin.

pity that.

wow. tying a corporate brand around an individual is a dangerous gambit. We can all blame Seinfeld for this mess.

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Per the Wall St. Journal:

"Ms. Stewart faces about a year in prison, under federal sentencing guidelines, but the judge could order that she spend some of that time in a halfway house or even in home detention."

She also is required to give up her position on the Board of Directors of her company, Martha Steward Omnimedia.

Good work Gothamist. You had this posted only a couple minutes after I received the breaking news email from CNN.

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oh my! if she stays at a halfway house, can you imagine the reality show possibilities! it'd be freakin' brilliant!

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I am dying to see a barbara wawa interview with martha in an orange jumpsuit.
It's a good thing.

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Oh poor Martha.
I wonder how she is going to decorate her cell.

i am sure she was equipped with meticulously embroidered - pressed and folded - kerchiefs when the verdict was read

instead of glory-ing (is that a word) in the sad life of martha steward, get thee to vincent gallo's feedback (left for others) page:

http://cgi2.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedbackMemberLeft&memberid=nbvbn&items=25&page=1&frompage=-1&item=-1&de=off

very entertaining!

MSO going down and out?

I sense an increase in unemployment figures coming from the... um... Omnimedia sector.

I think it's terrible that in her attempts to save about $51,000 in 2001, countless people working for her company, not to mention her investors, are going to lose so much more than that (jobs, stock value, shares, 401k, etc).
I'm having a hard time enjoying this, even if she is a bitch.

i just realized... this is all well and good.. but when do they actually go against someone who fucked with more than themselves, like Enron?

What she did was against the law, and she has to be punished for it, even though it seems minor. Everybody forgets that for each of those insider ImClone sales, there was a buyer or buyers on the other side who got stuck with the stock when it tanked.

She is rich, privileged and connected, and securities law strives to keep people like that on a level playing field with everybody else. Maybe it's absurd to even try, and we should just accept the fact, but for now at least it's the law of the land.

And please remember that she wasn't even convicted of securities fraud or insider trading - those charges were dropped. She was basically convicted of acting as if she was above the law, when she got caught.

I can't wait to read the tell-all books from the investigators - I'm sure must have tried to play all sorts of mindgames with them in the early stages of the investigation. She's notorious for her elitism and arrogance - the notion that she's better than the "little people". Note to Manhattan millionaires - when the "little people" are armed with subpoenas issued by a federal judge, save the condescension for after they've left.

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Who's next, Mrs. Fields?

It's obvious by the comments that people love to see the so-called elite suffer. All stockbrokers, not just Bacanovic, should have been on top of things and aware that shares of Imclone were being dumped, or do most stockbrokers not care about their clients unless they're well-heeled. Waksal was guilty of insider trading, knowing the government was going to dump the cancer drug; Stewart only knew through Bacanovic that Waksal was selling, not why! When he dumped that many shares it stands to reason that the price would drop drastically, to $60 per share.

I will continue to buy Stewart's products until they're discontinued because they are top quality for a reasonable price.

I think Martha should go to jail just like everybody else. And even though her companies might also suffer the consequences that shouldn't give her the right to break the law. Considering all of her wealth she choose to break the law and I presume her greed is what got her into this trouble. I have no sympathy for her at all. Anyone who wears mink to court on their day of the verdict shows her attitude. She won't be wearing that in jail.

Regarding her apparel: I'm not making excuses for Stewart, but she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. Reporters commented on her expensive handbags and the mink "scarf" she wore. An average viewer would never have known the bags were expensive, until the reporters pointed it out. Maybe she should have purchased some handbags at K-Mart to make everyone happy. As far as the mink scarf, I'm certainly not rich, but I,too, once had a winter coat with a lovely mink collar. She's at least entitled to wear what she pleases, knowing it may be the last time for a very long time, she will be able to. If she dressed "down", people would say she was being hypocritical and trying to present a false image.

I think she should be let go i like her

I don't think she should go to jail. i think she should be sent to my house for one week and make it look great. we should have a list of people where she should go for the next 5 years. it's better then jail.

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