ABSTRACT
The months of late 2003 and early 2004 were filled with accounts of the notorious Martha Stewart insider trading scandal and trial. Hard evidence against Ms. Stewart consisted primarily of the recorded sale of her Imclone stock, and phone records documenting relevant calls to and from Ms. Stewart. Remaining evidence consisted almost exclusively of reports of conversations between Ms. Stewart and her stockbrokers, friends, and aides. Although Ms. Stewart and her brokers described memories of their own conversations, others reported on what they overheard of the conversations, as well as their memories of Ms. Stewart’s later comments on them. In the end, Martha Stewart was indicted and convicted of a crime—obstructing justice by lying to investigators—largely through others’ reports of remembered conversations.
