I don't understand Martha's defense!

[Raven]

The story has been around forever that Martha told her best friend that Sam Waksal and his family were dumping their ImClone stock. Martha has consistently denied this but the best friend testified to this very thing yesterday. Aside from calling the friend a liar, what can Martha's defense team possibly do to pull this case out of the fire? I have thought that if Martha could prove that there was, in fact, an agreement between her and her broker to sell her stock when it reached $60, then it really wouldn't matter what she knew or didn't know about Waksal's stock dumping. What do you think.

[MrBenchley]

1. Remember, she's not on trial for Imclone

The actual charge in her trial was that by saying she was not guilty of wrongdoing, she was deceiving people who had invested in Martha Stewart's own stock....

A peculiar case that even the Wall Street Journal thinks is screwy.

[Raven]

2. But it does do a job on her credibility.

:-)

[BR_Parkway]

3. and a great distraction from Enron

the timing then was terrific to distract (esp since she's a Dem supporter). Look how tough * is on white collar crime!

[DEM FAN]

4. True. And Kenny Boy Lay Sits In A Houston Mansion.

:-(

[underpants]

5. That is a tough one

The prosecution is closing today I think.

Without knowing everything they know I would have to say............I would say that that was a casual conversation and that Martha did indeed have the agreement to sell at a set price but that she was just telling her friend that as support for the decision.

I don't know.

[SOteric]

6. I suspect what often is called into question in court cases such as this..

That Martha's defense team will question the accuracy of her friend's recall, and whether she could have been heavily interpretting Martha's statements.

We all do this, to some extent. My friends and I filter one another's statements through our knowledge of one another and somehow in the hindsight cobble together things that were never actually said. Usually in such ways as to add to and sustain the friendship, but now and again things go off a bit.

One can see it on this board with no small frequency. One poster makes a fairly direct and objective statement of fact, but either because of their history with the material or our own, we colour it up into offense or agreement where none was intended.

Whether something of this sort was at play in their conversation I cannot say, but I've no doubt that Stewart's defense team will at least attempt to allude to its possibility.