Dear Feds: Lighten the fuck up

[kierthos]

Read this article..

A claim of innocence is now considered securities fraud? I call bullshit. And I don't even like Martha Stewart. Where the fuck was this amazing omniscience about motives during the whole goddamn Enron debacle? Those are assholes who should have been lined up against a wall and shot, but apparently, actually declaring your innocence only adds to your troubles.

And people wonder why I mistrust the government...

Comments

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Yes, but claiming innocence in front of a stockholders meeting isn't... It might be lying, but it isn't a crime. Besides, they're not charging her with perjury...

[hartley.livejournal.com]

It *can* be fraud... if you're doing it for the express purpose of causing a change in the stock price, which is what the Feds claim she did it for...

...but first they have to prove she's guilty of insider trading in the first place, then they have to prove she lied about it in that meeting for the express purpose of causing the stock to fluctuate.

It's real real shaky, even if their reasoning is sound.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and if they're going to charge her with "manipulating stock prices" for things she said during a shareholder or stockholder meeting, they might as well charge every last corporate executive, because they never embellish figures or anything like that...