Martha Stewart, founder and CEO of her multimillion-dollar company, Martha Stewart Living Omni media, has been indicted on charges of lying to investigators, securities manipulation and obstruction of justice. She was sentenced to five months in a West Virginia state women's prison and 5 months under house arrest. It was initially said that Ms. Stewart had been indicted on insider trading charges, but obviously such charges could not be proven. After a year and a half of investigation, she was indicted on totally different charges. Ms. Stewart's stockbroker at the time, Mr. Bacanovic, who worked at Merrill Lynch Investment Company, was also indicted on the same charges. Mr. Bacanovic called his assistant to give Ms. Stewart non-public information about one of his company's other clients and how the stock of this particular company, Imclone biotech, was going to drop the next day. After receiving this information, Ms. Stewart authorized her stockbroker to sell her shares in Imclone biotech. He held nearly 4,000 shares of the biotech company. This company was said to be on the verge of marketing a new drug that would have a major breakthrough in the treatment of cancer. However it turned out that the Food and Drug Administration would not approve this particular drug. Since this new drug is the company's leading product to attract investors, Imclone's president knew that the stock would plummet once the announcement was made public. Around the end of December 2001, Imclone CEO Sam Waksal, also a Merrill Lynch client, began illegally transferring his shares to his daughter. The intent was to get the daughter to start selling the stock before the FDA made its announcement that it would not support the d... middle of paper... due to its public statements that it had done no harm. When Ms. Stewart was indicted and realized the impact this trial was having on her beloved company, she resigned as president and CEO. I believe that if Ms. Stewart had not lied and admitted her wrongdoings, she would have come away lighter than she already had, with a pile full of lies. Being the beloved home decorating public figure that she was, if she had appealed to her consumers and asked for forgiveness, I think the most Ms. Stewart would have paid would have been a fine. All the lies and cover-ups only served to give her prison time and lose more money than she was originally trying to save when she sold the shares early. After carefully examining this case from several angles, it was clear that if Martha Stewart had told the truth all would be forgiven.