As Martha Stewart might face jail time, former imprisoned insider trader Foster Winans debates Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.

As the government pursues Martha Stewart for avoiding $50,000 in losses, the press has begun to question why it has yet to indict former Enron CEO Ken Lay and former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers.

Both men are alleged to have made millions in profits from fraudulent schemes and caused significant losses to millions of investors.

On Tuesday, the founder of ImClone Systems, Sam Waksal, was sentenced to seven years in the stock-trading scandal that has ensnared his friend Martha Stewart.

A federal judge handed down the sentence Tuesday. Waksal was also ordered to pay nearly $4.3 million in fines and back taxes.

Stewart, a longtime friend of Waksal, is accused by federal prosecutors of unloading her ImClone stock when she heard the Waksals were quietly selling their stocks.

Also Tuesday, Stewart appeared at the FBI’s Manhattan headquarters for a quiet mug shot and fingerprinting session.

• Foster Winans, former Wall Street Journal reporter convicted of insider trading for leaking advance word of his columns to broker, served 9 months in prison in 1988. Author of Trading Secrets: Seduction and Scandal at the Wall Street Journal. He is also a freelance author and ghost writer and President of a non-profit writers center in Pennsylvania.
• Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter.

Link:

Corporate Crime Reporter

Foster Winans