When do you think the SEC will move to convict? Leavenworth? Didn't you CFA materials cover regulatory?
You can't "short a company to its ground". They can only short the company's stock price to the ground. And even that won't work for long when the company has solid financials.
Well when a company's stock price is even on the ground, the company is usually not too far off. If a company has solid financials then its stock price wouldn't be able to be shorted to the ground in the first place unless the shorters are doing something really malicious.