Free Martha! She's a modern day tragic hero

It would have been easier for me to write an article about just how evil Martha Stewart is. All the information is there; from magazine covers to newspaper headlines, the vilification of Martha Stewart is omnipresent. However, Martha Stewart is not the wicked person the media makes her out to be. She is a modern day tragic hero, falling from happiness to misery through her own slip of judgment.

In this story, Martha Stewart is the protagonist, the blonde patron of domesticity whose greed (an attribute that we all possess) overrode good judgment. Every good tragedy must have an antagonist to bring down the protagonist. In this case it is the media; nitpicking and over dramatizing everything from what she wore (a $12,000 bag!), her verdict ("Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!") and previewing her prison (they call it "Club Fed") before she is even sentenced. Even Martha Stewart juror Jonathan Laskin admitted on an interview with Dateline NBC that the media was hard to escape: "You'd leave that courtroom and more times than not there'd be a lot of photographers out there. And you'd have headings on a newsstand that you weren't supposed to look at. And little bits of conversation that you would hear on the subway that you weren't supposed to listen to. And yes, there was a buzz in the air about it."

This epic tale begins on December 27, 2001 where we find Martha Stewart on her private jet en route to Mexico for a vacation. Her jet lands in San Antonio, Texas to refuel. Stewart tries to return a call to her stockbroker Peter Bacanovic, who left a message with Stewart's assistant Ann Armstrong. Armstrong recorded a message which said "Paul Bacanovic thinks ImClone is going to start trading downward." Stewart never gets in contact with Bacanovic himself but instead is informed by his office that shares of ImClone were being traded heavily and that Sam Waksal (the CEO of ImClone) and his family members were unloading shares of the drug company. After the call, Martha immediately places a sell order on her shares of ImClone.

Contrary to popular belief, Martha never received insider information from Sam Waksal or Paul Bacanovic. This was confirmed by a recorded message Stewart left for Waksal after her sell order asking him what was going on with ImClone. Phone records also proved that Stewart never talked to Bacanovic personally. She never had prior knowledge that the Food and Drug Administration would reject a cancer drug developed by ImClone the next day causing the share price to drop. Bacanovic knew of the F.D.A's decision and used the information to sell off shares of ImClone.

As ridiculous as it may sound, Martha Stewart's entire court case is essentially based on lying. In an effort to defend herself, her company, and her reputation (which I feel she has every right to do) Stewart concocted a story that she instructed him to sell all her shares of ImClone if the fell below $60. The climax of this story unfolded on March 5, 2004 when Stewart was found guilty of obstructing justice, lying and conspiring with her broker. The ironic part of the verdict is that Stewart obstructed justice, lied, and conspired about a crime that she never committed.

Unlike the tragedies we slaved over in literature class, this modern day tragic hero does not succumb to death (such as Hamlet, King Lear, or Othello) but instead must resign from her post as Director and Chief Creative Officer of the kingdom she built herself: Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Her television show was immediately removed from the schedule of CBS and UPN affiliates. Martha Stewart's unnecessary fall had begun.

Her conviction is unjustifiable because other people connected to this story who were actually involved in insider trading were never prosecuted. Take Aliza Waksal, the daughter of Sam Waksal, who on December 27, 2001 sold 40,000 shares of ImClone worth 2.5 million dollars after receiving insider information from her father. Aliza's sell comes at a much larger scale then Martha Stewart's sale of 4,000 ImClone shares worth for $228,000. While Sam Waksal was sentenced to seven years, his daughter was left off the hook even after she admitted that her father had given her insider information. The government concluded that even though she is 28 years old, Aliza Waksal is financially dependent on her father and that Sam Waksal's instruction to sell ImClone shares benefited him more then Aliza because he is still responsible for her bills and any loss she could have incurred. Not only did Aliza avoid jail time but she kept all the money resulted from the sale of ImClone shares.

The fall of Martha Stewart concerns me because the story of a person who built an empire and livelihood based on her love for cooking and crafts will be replaced with the story of a person who lied. Her name is now unjustly synonymous with crime, greed, and dishonesty.

Regrettably, our tragic hero's story does not end here. The long-stretched conclusion will unfold on June 17 when Stewart returns to court to be sentenced. Can this tale conclude with a happy ending, or will tragedy prevail, ending this story with Martha Stewart in prison?