I feel bad for Martha Stewart
And here's why. Let's just take it to the simplest level. She's guilty of "insider trading" because she had this privelaged info that the government was about to make announcements regarding ImClone's cancer drugs. Baconavich, who IS ImClone, is her best friend (and onetime boyfriend, I believe). Now she could go to prison for 6 years.

Well, here's this: Baconovich tells her (and let's presume this info is unsolicited from Martha and that she's not paying superclose attention to ImClone because she's busy doing other stuff) "My company is about to go down the tubes. The government is going to make this announcement, yada, yada." Well, what in the world is she supposed to do? Hold on to all this stock out of principle? And lose all that money out of principle? Can you blame her for selling? You can't unhear something or unknow something.

The "twist" on the case that's been added is that they want to prosecute her for market manipulation because of her publicly denying any wrongdoing and telling fibs to bolster her own stock once the scandal broke. The idea is that the fibs fooled her investors and therefore cost them money. Waaaalll, I think old Martha may be guilty of that one. But I feel bad for her for the intial scandal.

Eh, oh well.