Utah Attorney General Kowtows to Overstock.com

It's pretty clear that Patrick Byrne's name is mud in Utah.

Utah voters rejected overwhelmingly a school voucher proposal that had been heavily promoted by Overstock.com's wack-a-doo CEO -- who reacted with a series of condescending and insulting public remarks. Byrne has been excoriated in the blogs and newspaper letter pages of Utah.

Byrne's antics, combined with his previous history of making nutty stock market conspiracy allegations, has destroyed what was left of his company's, and his own, reputation.

Still, the SEC-investigated Byrne and his SEC-investigated company have one big fan left in the state: Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

The whole tawdry tale can be found on Sam Antar's blog.

Seems that Shurtleff let himself be used in a PR stunt by Overstock in its ceaseless campaign to smear and defame Sam, who has been raising serious questions about Overstock's accounting practices.

I'd say that Mark Shurtleff has some explaining to do.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



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