The federal judge in the stock fraud trial of Westport’s Martha Stewart said today she will reserve decision on an application by the defense to dismiss part of the charges against her.
U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum had appeared particularly interested in the possibility of throwing out the securities fraud count against
Stewart.
It accuses her of deceiving investors in her media conglomerate,
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
“I reserve decision on all the motions to dismiss,” Cedarbaum told the court after hearing arguments from lawyers for Stewart, broker Peter Bacanovic and prosecutors.
She said she needed more time to consider the motions and asked attorneys to provide some past court decisions that might help her make her ruling.
Cedarbaum made the statement at the beginning of the day’s proceedings in a Manhattan courthouse.
After 21 witnesses and 14 days of testimony, the prosecution in Stewart’s trial has rested and the defense has taken over.
Meanwhile, sources told The Wall Street Journal that lawyers for Stewart and her stockbroker co-defendant are leaning not to have them testify in their defense.
Stewart and Bacanovic are charged with lying to investigators about what prosecutors said was a secret stock tip that prompted Stewart to sell her ImClone Systems Inc. shares on Dec. 27, 2001.
Government lawyers say Bacanovic ordered his Merrill Lynch assistant, Douglas Faneuil, to warn Stewart that ImClone’s founder was dumping his shares and that she immediately traded on the confidential tip.
A former lawyer for Faneuil, who gave perhaps the most damaging testimony to date against Stewart and Bacanovic, was called to the witness stand today by defense lawyers hoping to poke holes in Faneuil’s testimony.
But Jeremiah Gutman, an 80-year-old civil rights lawyer, backed up his former client’s account of events, saying Faneuil was afraid of telling investigators what he knew about the ImClone sale.
Gutman also testified that a Merrill Lynch lawyer told him at one point during the investigation that the brokerage was working out a deal with prosecutors so that no staff would face charges relating to ImClone.
He said the lawyer informed him that the “deal would involve getting all the Merrill Lynch people off the hook and then letting the chips fall where they may.”
Also today, a defense ink expert testified Bacanovic used at least three different pens on a worksheet of Stewart’s portfolio on which the notation “(at)60’’ appears next to a listing for her ImClone stock.
The government contends Bacanovic added the notation to make the $60 agreement seem legitimate.
But the expert, Albert Lyter III, said the “(at)60’’ appears to have been made with the same pen as a small dash that appears next to a listing for Apple Computer stock.
This sounds like more and more delays. In my opinion, Martha is totally innocent of the baseless charges and those charges should have already been dismissed. As I have mentioned before, it will be ‘a good thing’ when and if Martha marries Edd Townsend and they both regroup at Turkey Hill Road South for an all new adventure in life. Click onto my name below for interesting info. Thanks, WPN.com, keep up the good work! – Brian.