Martha Stewart and her troubles with the law

With all the hubbub about Martha Stewart right now, Jeffrey Toobin’s Lunch at Martha’s from February’s New Yorker is a good look at the legal issues involved in the case and Stewart’s personal feelings about it:

When we took a lunch break, it was clear that the wounds of the past year ran deep. After I admired the silver chopsticks that had been set out, Stewart said, “You know, in China they say, ‘The thinner the chopsticks, the higher the social status.’ Of course, I got the thinnest I could find.” After a pause, she added, “That’s why people hate me.”

The article reveals Stewart to be attentive to detail and controlling, but it’s hard to see that she would be interested at all in jeopardizing her career, forture, company, and reputation over “three-hundredths of one per cent of her total net worth”. It just doesn’t make sense. The SEC is barking up the wrong tree here.