I didn't follow the Martha Stewart case closely so I'll have little to add on that. I did garner the impression at the time, though, that Ms. Stewart got roughed up - legally speaking of course - for one essential reason. That reason, I can only describe it as a combination of two aspects of who she was at that time. She was very high-minded, arrogant we might say, toward the enforcement people at the federal gov't agency, who she seemed to think were, compared to the high and mighty fashion goddess, lowly salaried peons. So besides this attitude, she also had, not to clobber myself over the head with understatement or anything, a lot of business savvy and acumen, as well as, you know, finance, cash baby cash. So for her to screw around for relatively speaking spare change with the securities laws? .... I'm not sourcing anyone by saying this and I won't, but when you dare and double-dare Uncle Sam to make an example of yourself, well, guess what.
On Boeing, etudiant, I'll give you my forecast. In the continuing legal dramas in several courts in the U.S. as well as the closely related legal - and policy - show playing out in and around the structure and operation of the FAA, Boeing's failure and refusal to cooperate at the start of the investigations after the first crash and then the second also, these failures will play pretty significant roles, maybe even prominent one. Even if not technically admissible in evidence in, say, the class action suit that may be certified to proceed in Chicago, it is a safe forecast I think that the sorry, sordid record put together by Boeing will have a role in how that case resolves. And other cases too.
I happen to think that throwing execs into jail for being part of the big "playing of the game" of the corporate world is not the best way to deter others. Instead, consign them to having a lower disposable income life for a long time, and make it much lower and for a good long time. No more caddies deters more than a stint in a 'Club Fed'.