I'm anything but a fan of Ms. Stewart, but in light of the unprosecuted *real* criminals, this seems like a huge waste of resources for what is a minor (at best) transgression. Jail is pointless. Martha ain't going to do it again and I don't think it's going to act as much of a deterrent to all the tablecloth hemming, duck trussing and flower arranging fraudsters. The best it can do is waste a few more news cycles and suck up a few more thousand tax dollars.

BTW, I never knew Martha was flat out insane. The Smoking Gun has the goods (http://thesmokinggun.com/archive/0716043martha1.html).

It is said that what goes around, comes around. As I've seen firsthand how nasty she can be, I have no sympathy for her whatsoever.

It's not so much that I'm sympathetic -- ambivalent and apathetic might be better choices. It's pretty hard for to me care about Martha one way or the other.

I just hate the waste of resources; manpower, the courts time, the excessive media coverage etc. I can think of a lot of people who would be better choices if they are looking to convince me they are serious about corporate crime -- of course the upside is that if Martha is good for jail time I figure they'll lynch Ken Lay.

Martha Who?

Boo hoo. She needs to wake up to an unkempt Mama in prison to receive what's really coming to her.

What Al said.

Martha, through her stock broker, basically stole $50k from some other investor. Hard to feel sorry for a thief who gets caught. Just because our justice system doesn't go after the thieves consistently is no defense for her.