Martha Stewart went to jail for lying about her ImClone sales, and was not prosecuted for insider trading. In my discussions on the subject one of my points was that the SEC would have had a very difficult time proving the inside trading allegation, which was why the US Attorney did not charge her with that violation in the criminal case.
Now we learn that the US Attorney has dropped the criminal insider trading cases against other ImClone tippees, and they will not be criminally prosecuted. While that event comes with their agreement to pay some 2.8 million in disgorgement and penalties, I would be willing to bet that Marth would have paid the combined sum of $200,000 to the SEC to settle the insider trading civil case, than to spend 5 months in a federal prision for lying.
