In the court of public opinion, Mark Cuban has been accused, tried and, in many circles, convicted. The media, powered by thousands of bloggers, has escalated an SEC accusation into a guilty of insider trader label. The court of public of opinion certainly is not the final say in our judicial system, but it does play an important role, particularly with high-profile figures like Cuban. Mark Cuban is innocent. That's actually not an opinion; it's a central part of our legal system. Cuban is innocent until proven guilty here in the good ole US of A. The Bush Administration has whittled down many individual liberties over the last eight years, but his legal henchmen have not been able to override our legal system's presumption of innocence. So why are people convicting Mark Cuban of insider trading? Yes, the SEC has filed a complaint against Cuban, but it is a big leap from accusation to ball and chain, especially since this is only a civil matter. Let Cuban have his day in court and we"ll see what happens. But if you agree that our judicial process is a fundamental right, then you will withhold judgment and also speculation over what what may or may not happen to Cuban's business interests.
To the charges...Cuban hardly hid his sale of the Mamma.com (now Copernic) stock. He publicly commented about the sale, and the fact that he was not happy with the company's taking on a private investment. Most
inside traders, by definition, do not reveal their secrets to the outside world.
Also, clouding the SEC's case against Cuban are disturbing emails initiated by an SEC attorney, sent from an SEC.gov email address and according to time-stamps written on company time. Chalk up another example of our taxpayer money hardly working. Jeffrey Norris, an SEC attorney in Fort Worth, Texas, sent several harassing emails to Mark Cuban. In one e-mail, Norris criticized Cuban for "smearing the good name of a patriot like President Bush." Norris made this charge because Cuban was supposedly financially involved with a controversial film about the Sept. 11 attacks. In fact, Cuban said he played no role with Loose Change. Whoops. The SEC would never falsely accuse someone, right? Shouldn't the SEC operate free from dirty politics? Yet, we have least one SEC employee who took it upon himself to be a "Bush patriot. It's easy for the SEC to deny any link between the charges against Cuban and Norris' email barrages, but why is the SEC tolerating an employee who took it upon himself to call out those he believed acted unpatriotically? And what do patriotism and a movie about 9/11 have to do with stock sales in the first place? When you have a few minutes, read the entire exchange between Cuban and Norris. If you believe in free thought, speech and well-crafted arguments, Cuban acquits himself beautifully...except for his unwillingness to use punctuation. Take a deep breath, remember there are two sides to every story, and let's wait and see what happens once Cuban gets to present his defense. Maybe there's something to the charge against Cuban and his sale of Mamma.com stock. But, he is presumed innocent, at least on the Money Players Blog and likely by the incoming Administration. --Debbie Spander and Marc Isenberg
Comments