Was Martha Set Up?

Indirectly I have been a fan of Martha Stewart. That is because my wife not only watches her show and buys her products, but she personally admires Stewart because of what she has accomplished in the traditional "man's world" of Wall Street economics.

I couldnt help but watch the government's case against this woman and I quickly came to the conclusion that she was (1.) a scapegoat and/or cover for the real high crimes going on these days in other corporate offices and (2.) found guilty of something that common sense tells us should not even be considered a crime.

Steward was convicted of lying to a federal investigator. She also was found guilty of conspiring to tell this lie. That she sold some stock after getting a tip that the company was in trouble shouldn't have been considered a crime because it did not sound to me like "insider trading." Stewart may have gotten the tip from someone on the inside who knew someone else on the inside, but it wasn't as if she was purposefully seeking this information.

When she knew the estimated $40,000 in stock she held was about to tumble, Stewart did what any other intelligent person would do. She called her broker and sold her stock.

Now the woman is about to be sentenced to serve time in prison, lose the business she has spent much of her life building, and go down in flames because a jury said she lied to a federal officer.

While lying is not considered a virtuous act, since when did it become a federal crime? Anybody that watches televised court cases must conclude that witnesses, sworn under oath to tell the truth, commit perjury all the time and never get charged. How else could there be so many different sides to one story? And perjury is a crime.

To Martha Stewart, the act of denying any involvement with insider trading on the day she disposed of her ImClone stock, probably was not a lie. Her secretary received a call from an employee of her broker saying that the broker just sold his shares of ImClone. It apparently was not even a direct communication between Stewart and her broker. She tuned in to the warning and sold her shares of stock.

Now radio commentator Jeff Rense has produced some letters on his web site from people who are suggesting that Stewart may have been set up by the government and/or big business to take this fall. They also suggest that another group of unknown and unnamed traders were involved in this shady business to make a tidy profit on this "insider tip" to certain stock holders. The arguments are quite convincing.

They ask why the Federal Drug Administration would temporarily reject ImClone's new anti-cancer drug Erbitux, with numerous holders of ImClone stock (including Stewart) getting an early tipped-off to this decision. Then, even as Stewart and Mr. Waksal, her broker, were sweating out their trial, the decision was reversed. Suddenly the holders of those once near worthless stocks were in line to make a lot of money.

One writer stated: "It does seem odd that an experimental drug should be suddenly rejected and then just as suddenly approved, when new studies should have taken much more time to determine the effectiveness of the drug, according to FDA standard practices."

The writer continued:

"This has the appearance of both gross stock fraud and malicious prosecution on the part of the federal government. If Martha Stewart is the victim of a crime, who benefits? If her huge stock company, MSLO, collapses, who would be gratified or profited by such a collapse? Is the federal government responsible for the collapse of MSLO stock, based on this persecution of Martha Stewart? Are her stockholders victimized by the FDA, SEC, FBI and Justice Department conspiracy to destroy Martha Stewart?

"Was it the government's intent to destroy not only Stewart but her stockholders, too? Because that's what's happening. Her spiteful juror said the jury's conviction of her was a victory for the little guys. How about the little guys who own MSLO stock? Does her jury realize what they've done to Martha Stewart's stockholders? And to all of Martha Stewart's employees, who must now find new work? And for what? For "lying" to the feds?

"After this travesty it should be obvious that anyone who tells the truth to the feds is an idiot. A stockholder can sell his stock for any reason or for no reason at all and he doesn't have to explain it or 'tell the truth' to anyone, let alone some parasite living on taxed money."

Yet another contributor to the Rense piece wrote that Stewart was chosen for the fall because "she is resented by many for playing the game like a man of power would do. I have comments from men and women that are happy she's going down for no other reason than she 'shouldn't be playing a man's game.'

"I think the main reason Martha was chosen was busy work," the writer continued. "We are given busy work to distract us from what our governments are really doing. When there are so called 'big stories' put out by the media you can depend on the fact that it's a distraction."

Yet another writer noted that the prosecution and persecution of Steward is Masonic in its nature.

"Freemasons are the power structure of this country (and the world) and they exclude women entirely from their cult. The wives are kept busy and pacified in their Daughters of the Eastern Star club. Obviously Martha would not have allowed herself to be shunted into such a group, which is where Masons want their women.

"Martha Stewart's high quality, hard-working feminine quality was in conflict with the Masonic New Age of degradation and mediocrity and the merging of the sexes. She represents beauty and making the home a happy and better place. Rather than just yak about platitudes on some talk show, she really worked to improve things and millions of women understood that she was a very healthy and uplifting influence.

"The malicious prosecution of Martha Stewart and the shocking guilty verdicts by an ignorant, envious jury has put us on notice that the federal government is at war with the people. The government is our deadly enemy."