Martha Stewart wound up being prosecuted for "obstruction of justice" and "conspiracy", the go-to offenses when prosecutions otherwise hit a wall.

Stewart's prosecution came at time when insider trading appeared common and when regulators were looking for a visible victory. A celebrity prosecution gets a lot of press without actually angering people with real power. Stewart was a mere millionaire, not a multimillionaire or billionaire.

Edit: Well, I stand corrected, she was a multimillionaire at the time. Still it's hard not to see her as relatively small potatoes in the world of stocks.

https://www.thoughtco.com/martha-stewarts-insider-trading-ca...