Martha Stewart’s best friend yesterday delivered a potential knockout blow against the domestic diva, telling the jury how Martha bragged, “Isn’t it nice to have brokers who tell you those things?” only days after getting a secret ImClone stock tip.
The packed courtroom gasped as Mariana Pasternak, a 20-year pal of the fallen good-living guru, revealed Stewart’s incriminating boast – which was made as the pair lapped up a $17,000 luxury holiday in Mexico in December 2001 after she sold $228,000 worth of ImClone shares.
It’s the most devastating evidence heard at Stewart’s super-charged trial as it backs up the testimony of former rookie Merrill Lynch broker Douglas Faneuil, who said the one-time corporate golden girl sold her shares after he told her ImClone founder Sam Waksal was trying to dump all his family’s shares.
Pasternak, a 50-year-old Connecticut real-estate agent who says she used to speak to Stewart daily, said she was flying with her pal to the posh Las Ventanas al Paraiso resort in Mexico on Dec. 27, 2001.
While the jet was refueling in San Antonio, Texas, she said she heard Stewart – the godmother of two of Pasternak’s children – speaking in a “raised tone” during a telephone conversation.
Several days later, possibly on Dec. 30 after the pair enjoyed a $300 hike in Las Ventanas, Stewart told Pasternak she knew about Waksal’s frantic attempts to unload his shares, the jury heard.
“We didn’t go down for dinner [that night] – we were tired,” Pasternak said, remembering that they were standing on the terrace of their $1,500-a-night suite as the conversation unfolded.
“I asked, ‘What is Sam doing?’ I remember Martha saying that Sam was walking funny at a Christmas party – and that he was selling or trying to sell his stock and his daughter was selling or trying to sell her stock and Merrill Lynch didn’t sell.
“I recall Martha saying that his stock was going down or went down and ‘I sold mine.’ “
It was in another conversation that Stewart made the boast about her brokers that Pasternak recounted for the jury yesterday only minutes before the trial ended for the day.
After Pasternak dropped the bombshell, Stewart lawyer Robert Morvillo bounced to his feet, demanding that the remark be struck from the record.
Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum rejected Morvillo’s request, but said she would instruct the jury today that Stewart’s boast should not be regarded as evidence of a conspiracy involving stockbroker Peter Bacanovic, 41.
Defense sources said last night Pasternak’s recollection of the conversation will be shown to be inconsistent with her previous statements to the feds when she is cross-examined today.
Pasternak was in the witness box for only 20 minutes yesterday, but her shock testimony was enough to make Stewart blush as she sat helplessly with her high-powered lawyers at the defense table.
She faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of all five federal charges relating to her ImClone stock sale. Stewart is accused of conspiring with Bacanovic to obstruct the government’s insider-trading investigation, making false statements to the feds and committing securities fraud.
The day after Stewart sold her shares, Pasternak’s ex-husband Bart Pasternak sold $600,000 worth of ImClone shares.
The Post revealed last month that Pasternak, who has been separated from her husband for 10 years, appeared to be struggling financially, with federal tax liens worth $380,000 filed against her beachfront home in Westport, Conn.
In other testimony yesterday, Secret Service forensics expert Larry Stewart told the jury that a notation of “@60” that Bacanovic made on a worksheet used to track Stewart’s portfolio was written in different ink from all other entries on the sheet.
Prosecutors believe Bacanovic scribbled the “@60” next to the ImClone entry after Stewart sold her stock to back up their explanation they had a pre-existing agreement to sell when the stock price dropped to $60.
Stewart, the nation’s top ink expert, said infrared and ultraviolet light tests revealed differences between the “@60” entry and other notations.
But under cross-examination by Bacanovic lawyer Richard Strassberg, the expert admitted that at least one other mark on the document was also made using different ink.
He also said it was not possible to tell if the entries that appeared to be made with the same ink were made with one pen or several pens.
The government expects to wrap up its case today.
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MARTHA ON TRIAL
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS . . . Martha Stewart’s best pal, Mariana Pasternak, testified that the domestic diva told her, “Isn’t it nice to have brokers who tell you those things?” after Martha received a tip that ImClone founder Sam Waksal was trying to sell his family’s shares.
INK STINK: A Secret Service forensics expert told the jury that a notation of “@60” that stockbroker Peter Bacanovic wrote next to “ImClone” on a worksheet of Stewart’s shares was written in different ink than almost all the other entries on the sheet.
NO EXPENSE SPARED: Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum blocked the government from showing jurors that Stewart haggled over reimbursements from her company for haircuts and other small expenses worth as little as $200.
STOCKPOT BOILER: Morgan Stanley’s managing director, David Topper, said Stewart, a former stockbroker, told him she was “very familiar” with securities markets in 1999 when she was planning to take her multimedia company public.