Open Letter to Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff Re: Your lies on behalf of campaign contributor Overstock.com

To Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff:

I respectfully urge you to come clean about your efforts to smear me on behalf of your campaign contributor Overstock.com and its CEO Patrick Byrne.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is conducting a formal investigation of Overstock.com. Patrick Byrne is the admitted target of the SEC probe in contrast to his previous denials. By colluding with a public company and campaign contributor under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue a press release containing lies and distortions about me, you have become a facilitator of the company and possibly involved yourself in the commission of a securities fraud.

I urge you to promptly issue a full and complete categorical retraction of your false and misleading open letter to Overstock.com and issue a full public apology to me. In addition, Overstock.com and its CEO Patrick Byrne are asked to completely and fully rescind the company's false and misleading press release containing Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's lies and distortions in his open letter about me and issue a full public apology to me, too.

For additional information, please read the following blog posts:

• Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff Panders to Campaign Contributor Overstock.com & CEO Patrick Byrne and Defames Critic
• Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff Caught Lying on Behalf of Overstock.com and Patrick Byrne

Please note that other documentary evidence including taped phone conversations with persons in your office has been delivered to investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Respectfully,

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO & convicted felon)

Cc: Patrick Byrne (CEO of Overstock.com), Joseph J. Tabacco Jr. and Clay Corbus (Overstock.com Audit Committee members), and Kenneth Israel (Securities and Exchange Commission)

Update (08/18/08): Please read my blog post entitled, "Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) CEO Patrick Byrne Pays Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff to Defame a Blogger." Just a few days prior to Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's defamation of me in his "open letter" and Overstock.com's subsequent press release, Shurtleff received a $5,000 so-called campaign contribution from Overstock.com. In addition, new details of phone conversations with Deputy Attorney General Richard Hamp and Chief Deputy Attorney General Kirk Torgensen verify that Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff lied on behalf of Overstock.com to defame me.