MARTHA STEWART

BACKGROUND  Born and raised Jersey City, New Jersey  Second of six children  Barnard College  Before fame, was a stockbroker in wall street  Started cooking and catering in the 1970’s and grew the catering into a million dollar business  Became lifestyle mogul with these earnings…magazines, popular television programs, how-to books, and radio shows  Had never previously been in trouble with the law  Divorced with husband and has a daughter  Worth $1.2 billion

INSIDER TRADING SCANDAL  Under investigation for selling hundreds of shares of ImClone Systems prior to the FDA’s refusal to approve the company's cancer drug.  The value of the stock dropped after the FDA's announcement.  Stewart resigned from the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange, just four months after she had joined.  In June 2003, Stewart charged with: securities fraud obstruction of justice conspiracy and making false statements to prosecutors and the FBI.  Jury found her guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in addition to two counts of making false statements.  Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison and fined $30,000

THEORY Martha Stewart, in my opinion, would fit under the differential assosiation theories. I say this because she was well versed in the cut throat world of wall street, which many people are not fully knowledgeable about that realm. Since this is the case, I see it as a totally different aspect of culture, where there, some things and ways of going about things are the norm; where in a different portion of society would see it as deviant. Stewart knew how to make money in the stock market, and she knew the insider trading portion of her life was illegal, and therefore deviant behavior. Even though she knew this, she chose to take the risk and reward over what was right because of the personal benefits that were considered the norm in her circle of wall street. What intrigued me about this particular criminal, is that she was so blue collar. It wasn’t like other criminals that I saw were very violent and brutal. Stewart was educated in her field, she knew exactly what she was getting herself into and took the chance in order to make money. It was also interesting because it was the classic case of the rich trying to get richer. At the time of her charges, Martha Stewart was already a very wealthy and powerful individual. Going back to the original theory, it is crazy to see all the people making boatloads of money on wall street continuously trying to defeat the system in the hopes of more riches. These people are used to seeing deviance and thus, making it the normal thing to do.

Being such a popular and well-known case, it was never really formed into popular culture in the form of dramatization. This case was thoroughly dissected by the general public, especially the media.