Some feel she got off easy; others say case overblown

Confining Martha Stewart to her home as punishment for lying about a stock sale is like “sending a kid to his room that’s equipped with a TV, computer and all his toys. Not very punitive,” wrote Spokane’s Jessie Wuerst when asked what she thought about the domestic diva’s Friday sentencing.

The Spokesman-Review e-mailed hundreds of readers Friday, asking for feedback about Stewart’s sentencing, which included five months in prison, a $30,000 fine and five months of home confinement. Stewart was found guilty of lying about a 2001 sale of ImClone stock that saved her $51,000 when news accounts the following day sent the stock price plunging.

Several themes ran through the e-mail responses, including the feeling that an extra zero should have been tacked onto the fine, that what Stewart did paled in comparison with the crimes committed by executives at Enron, Adelphia and WorldCom, and that the case cost taxpayers more to prosecute than it was worth.

“She is such a little fish in the corporate scandals of the past few years,” wrote Sherry Thompson, of Spokane, who said she’d be much more impressed if the government liquidated all of Enron and Adelphia’s assets and returned the money to people hit hardest by those scandals.

“I would rather see news like that than news about a business woman who did not steal from her stockholders,” Thompson said.

Arlene Johnson, of Spokane, drove home that point a little more bluntly.

“Compared to the cockroaches at Enron, WorldCom and Adelphia, her ‘actions’ are almost nothing,” Johnson wrote.

People also expressed concern for the employees of Stewart’s companies. Dora-Faye Hendricks, of Spokane, said she didn’t believe Stewart’s products should be boycotted.

“Although the sales of her products certainly help Stewart, boycotting them would also hurt all the people she employs, and that number is probably significant,” Hendricks wrote. “So, I think business could continue ‘as usual’ for her companies, but she, herself, needs to pay the price of playing the stock market illegally.”

A couple of people said they thought Stewart received a harsher sentence because she is a woman.

“I feel sorry for her. She is being used as an example. She only lied, but she is a woman, so she will go to prison,” wrote Adele Dawson.

Others, like Bob Carson Jr., of Spokane, called the sentence fair.

“Do I think she lied to investigators? You bet,” Carson wrote.

Charles Booth, of Cheney, agreed.

“I think that her sentence might restore some of my faith in our legal system,” Booth wrote. “Now we shall see what happens to Ken Lay (ex-CEO of Enron).”

Spokane’s Kim Goodman called the series of events in the case “ridiculous” considering the ImClone drug, Erbitux, was eventually approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Stewart sold her stock prior to news being released about Erbitux’s initial problems receiving approval.

“The principal characters could have let everything sit. Sam Waksal (ImClone’s founder, who is serving a seven-year prison sentence for securities fraud) wouldn’t be sitting in jail. Martha Stewart wouldn’t be going to jail, and they’d all be fat and happy, including other investors,” he wrote. “What a bunch of bozos on every side of this case!

“The biggest benefit from the whole thing is all of the ‘Martha Stewart in prison’ jokes the whole debacle engendered.”