Martha Stewart's meteoric rise to fame and fortune began when she became one of the first female stockbrokers on Wall Street and through her business amassed a fortune. She also ran her own catering concern and published several books on entertaining. The climb up the corporate ladder toward establishing the Martha Stewart Empire began when she initiated a product partnership with Kmart and published a magazine called Martha Stewart Living. The name Martha Stewart became a national commodity when she developed her own syndicated cable TV show. In 1999 she combined her numerous enterprises - magazines, radio and television programs, household products and Internet sites -- to establish the company Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. She owns about 61% of the stock.

However, the optimistic public reputation that the Martha Stewart Empire represented was put to the test in 2002 when securities investigators began looking into the company's sale of 3,928 shares of ImClone Systems on Dec. 27, 2001 -- one day before the Food and Drug Administration made an announcement about an ImClone drug that sent stocks plummeting. A federal grand jury in Manhattan indicted Stewart and her former Merrill Lynch broker, Peter Bacanovic on June 4, 2003.

After reviewing numerous news reports about the background to this case, it is my belief that Martha Stewart should be acquitted for three reasons. Firstly, because her status and future progress is on the line for a crime that is rarely prosecuted in this manner; secondly, so that she may return to her business of improving the quality of life for all of us; and thirdly, because hundreds of jobs are at stake. Furthermore, I believe that the government is capitalizing on Stewart's celebrity status to distract attention from its failure to go after business tycoons whose criminal dealings far outstrip the misdeeds for which she is being prosecuted. The $40,000 she allegedly acquired unfairly is pocket change compared to her salary of over $2 million. She will be sentenced on June 17.