Journalist and CEO Roles Clarified

SALT LAKE CITY, July 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Overstock.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: OSTK) today commented on a recent series of article installments appearing on DeepCapture.com, an investigative journalism web publication co-founded by Patrick Byrne, Chairman and CEO of Overstock.com.

The serialized article was written by Mark Mitchell, formerly an editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, chief business correspondent for Time magazine in Asia, and assistant managing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. The article investigates the Food and Drug Administration's actions regarding a prostate cancer vaccine, and actions taken by a group of short-selling hedge fund managers and Wall Street figures with ties to organized crime, 1980's convicted stock-manipulator Michael Milken, and TV's host of Mad Money, Jim Cramer.

'I strongly favor Mark's efforts in bringing this story to light,' Byrne said, 'but I think it best to clarify that my second career as one of DeepCapture.com's journalists is separate and apart from my role as Chairman and CEO of Overstock.com.'

The article, entitled Michael Milken, 60,000 Deaths and the Story of Dendreon, centers on the travails of the biotech company, Dendreon, which was attacked by Wall Street operators right at the time when it seemed that the company's promising treatment for prostate cancer would receive FDA approval. Ultimately, the treatment was derailed by an unprecedented lobbying effort, causing Dendron's stock to tumble.

The DeepCapture.com website notes that one of its purposes 'is to expose Wall Street money managers who engage in illegal naked short selling, stock manipulation, and the deliberate destruction of public companies.' The site also states that though DeepCapture.com 'was initially funded by Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com . . . it is not part of Overstock.'

Jonathan Johnson, President of Overstock.com, welcomed the clarification, but went on to note that 'Shareholders of Overstock.com and officers and shareholders of public companies throughout the United States are tracking the Mitchell article installments with great interest.