Martha Stewart

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

What was the Accusation?

Martha Stewart is the world’s most well-known homemaker. She is known for her Martha Stewart brand that includes a popular TV show on PBS, a magazine, and a line of home improvement products. Her image made her conviction in 2004 of conspiracy and obstruction of justice even more surprising to her fans and the general public. The charges stemmed from an investigation into her selling of shares of drugmaker ImClone Systems, where she used inside information of an FDA ruling against a key ImClone drug to sell shares ahead of the negative news and made false statements about it when asked. After her sentencing, she stood on the courthouse steps and defiantly attacked those who went after her with such “venom.” Stewart also vowed that she would return. She served a five-month prison sentence and has since–as she promised–returned to marketing her product line with a largely restored image.

Key Apologia Strategies:

Attacking the Accuser, Bolstering

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Transcript

“Today is a shameful day. It’s shameful for me, and for my family, and for my beloved company, and for all of its employees and partners. What was a small personal matter came over the became over the last two years an almost fatal circus event of unprecedented proportions.

I have been choked and almost suffocated to death during that time, all the while more concerned about the well-being of others than for myself, more hurt for them and for their losses than for my own, more worried for their futures than the future of Martha Stewart the person.

More than 200 people have lost their jobs at my company as a result of this situation. I want them to know how very, very sorry I am for them and their families.

I would like to thank everybody who stood by me, who wished me well, waved to me on the street like these lovely people over here, smiled at me, called me, wrote to me. We received thousands of support letters, and more than 170,000 e-mails to marthatalks.com, and I appreciate each and every one of those pieces of correspondence. I really feel good about it.

Perhaps all of you out there can continue to show your support by subscribing to our magazine, by buying our products, by encouraging our advertisers to come back in full-force to our magazines.

Our magazines are great. They deserve your support, and whatever happened to me personally shouldn’t have any effect whatsoever on the great company Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. And I don’t want to use this as a sales pitch for my company, but we love that company, we’ve worked so hard on that company, and we really think it merits great attention from the American public.

And I’ll be back. I will be back. Whatever I have to do in the next few months, I hope the months go by quickly. I’m used to all kinds of hard work, as you know, and I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid whatsoever. I’m just very, very sorry that it’s come to this, that a small personal matter has been able to be blown out of all proportion, and with such venom and such gore, I mean it’s just terrible.

We are going to appeal so I’m not going to talk about the case. … I want to thank Bob Morvillo and his whole team for doing the very best job they could do in defending me.”

Sources

Hays, C. L. (2003, June 5). Prosecuting Martha Stewart: The overview; Martha Stewart indicted by U.S. on obstruction. New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/05/business/prosecuting-martha-stewart-overview-martha-stewart-indicted-us-obstruction.html

Hays, C. L. (2004, July 17). Martha Stewart’s sentence: The overview; 5 months in jail, and Stewart vows, ‘I’ll be back’. New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/business/martha-stewart-s-sentence-overview-5-months-jail-stewart-vows-ll-be-back.html

Transcript of Martha Stewart statement outside courthouse (2004, July 16). Deseret News. Retrieved from: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/595077776/Transcript-of-Martha-Stewart-statement-outside-courthouse.html