Frist won't be treated as Stewart has been

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/12779065.htm

WHITE-COLLAR CRIME
Frist won't be treated as Stewart has been

BY RHONDA CHRISS LOKEMAN
www.kcstar.com

People who think that Martha Stewart got burned because of who she was, not what she did, should watch closely what's happening with Bill Frist.

Appropriate questions have been raised about whether the Senate majority leader improperly sold stock benefiting a medical company with family ties.

As with Stewart, these questions have to do with timing. Why did Frist sell stock when he did? The answer to a similar question posed to Stewart landed the millionaire businesswoman in prison. Will millionaire Dr. Frist be taken down the same road for his ill-timed dump of Hospital Corporation of America stock? Not likely.

In March 2004, when Stewart was found guilty of four of the five counts against her, one of the jurors celebrated the verdict as ``a victory for the little guys.''<snip>

It still pays to be rich and powerful in white-collar criminal circles, but mostly it pays to be male. Maybe what Stewart needed was not a bigger defense team after all.

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman is a columnist for The Kansas City Star.

I'm a Tennessean - I don't want my alleged senator to walk if he's done the same damn thing they put Martha Stewart in jail for.

She's not a public servant - he is - that's another point. He should be held MORE accountable because he's paid using MY tax dollars that I'm forced to give. No one ever forced me to purchase Martha Stewart sheets at the local K-Mart.

didn't have the political connection to save her ass. Frist will use all he's got.

I think you are right (i don't mean right, i mean correct).

Martha was convicted of lying to the FBI. Frist is suspected of insider trading just like Sam Waksal of ImClone fame (Martha's ill-fated stock choice).

(snip)

Waksal, the first chief executive in the torrent of recent corporate scandals to do time, was expected to report Wednesday to a minimum-security prison about 75 miles from Philadelphia to begin serving a prison sentence of more than seven years.

The 55-year-old scientist admitted last fall to tipping his daughter to dump ImClone stock in December 2001 because he had received word the government was about to issue a negative report on the ImClone cancer drug Erbitux.

He was sentenced June 10 to seven years and three months in prison and ordered to pay about $4.3 million. A federal judge scolded him at the time for "lawlessness and arrogance."

http://www.courttv.com/people/2003/0723/waskal_ap.html

(snip)

Waksal is a better comparison to Frist than Martha IMHO.

"It still pays to be rich and powerful in white-collar criminal circles, but mostly it pays to be male."

No, it pays to be Republican. Martha Stewart was a big Democratic contributor before it was outlawed by McCain-Feingold