Blackwell Convicted of Insider Trading

    A chaired marketing professor at the Fisher School of Business at the Ohio State University, Roger D. Blackwell, was convicted of insider trading. (See Story) He served on the board of a company that was subject to a takeover and told friends about the event before it was announced.  The embarrassment for the school is one for the history books.  Blackwell had made a large gift, most of it testimonial, towards the building of a hotel in the business school complex and has his name etched in stone on the building.  The hotel is called the "Blackwell."  Until yesterday the hotel feature a prominent display case containing the most popular of his 20 or so books.  He was a very effective public speaker and, as such, a very popular teacher in the upper class and master's programs.  Thousands of students have taken his classes.  Indeed, he taught a class last quarter, after his indictment. 

     In a stunning display of bad taste, the local newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch, ran a second story on the conviction that asserted, and I am not making this up, that he could make more money after his conviction than before if he played the Martha Stewart card -- writing a book on his fall from grace.  Someone tell the Dispatch that he is going to prison -- and for a much longer term that Martha served -- unless he can win on appeal.