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Comment by bzbarsky | Hacker News Reader

Martha Stewart went to prison for lying to federal investigators and obstruction of justice, not for insider trading. The "insider trading" (not actually a crime; the actual criminal thing in such cases tends to be "securities fraud") charges were variously dropped or dismissed by the court, depending on the charge.

So she was actually innocent (in the legal system sense, at least) of the crime she was initially accused of, but guilty of obstructing the investigation.

Similar to the Ghosn story, actually: he's guilty of jumping bail and whatnot no matter what's going on with the substantive issue of embezzlement.

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> Martha Stewart went to prison for lying to federal investigators

Kids, if the FBI comes a-knocking, shut. Your. Fat. Fucking. Mouth.

Ask for a lawyer and the shut the fuck up. It doesn't matter if you're innocent.

If you talk to the Feds and make a mistake, you can be charged with a felony for lying to to federal agents. Did you talk to that guy on Saturday, May 20th, 2017? Who knows? The Feds do, and if you don't remember precise details, you got yourself a felony charge. Felony. Even if you are innocent of anything else, you lied to a Federal investigator.

Shut up. Ask for a lawyer. And shut up.

(I'm OK with the downvotes, if this helps someone remember to shut up and get a lawyer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWHrkDX35o

It's always shut the fuck up Friday. 7 days a week.

I advice you to reform the US federal criminal law.

It's a glaring injustice that a completely random innocent person can be prosecuted for saying "I don't know"

Where do you live? I can guarantee your state security/police operates in a roughly comparable manner.

I live in places where light doesn't shine not of really my own choosing, because the Western establishment is really determined on destroying its business, and industry.

It's a shame that people who do have an option to not to live in hellholes, and having functioning democracy can't lift a finger to do something about that instead of doing nothing, while rambling on internet forums.

That's a few decimal places down from the point. Stewart was sentenced to five months of prison for what was a $45,673 crime which she then later had to repay with interest. She was worth 100s of millions at the time.

The point was that it's not impossible, merely because Ghosn was rich, that he didn't do the deed.

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