AS Martha Stewart and her best buddy rang in the 2002 New Year with a $1,000 sea grill dinner party at a luxury beachfront resort in Mexico, they could not have dreamed their friendship was about to be torn apart.
For seven nights, Stewart and her pal of 20 years, Westport real-estate agent Mariana Pasternak, pampered themselves with spas and fancy meals as they ran up a $17,000 bill at the Las Ventanas al Paraiso on the Baja peninsular.
The middle-aged divorcees filled in their days exploring the exotic surrounds – a $300 private kayak tour one day, a guided hiking trek another – before returning to their shared $1,500 suite for evening drinks, according to Stewart’s hotel tab.
Pasternak, 50, who moved to the United States from her native Romania to work as an au pair, grew close to Stewart in the 1980s after marrying Connecticut doctor Bart Pasternak. They lived at Turkey Hill, around the corner from the Stewart household.
An end-of-year escape had become a staple of their friendship in the years after both of their marriages crumbled – and America’s corporate golden girl was usually happy enough to foot the bill.
They jetted off to the Galapagos Islands one year with Pasternak’s daughters, Monica, 20, and Lara, 17, to whom Stewart is godmother. Other years saw Martha and Mariana lapping up the sights of Peru, Egypt and Brazil.
But Pasternak’s muddled testimony at the domestic diva’s super-charged securities fraud trial last week was the final blow to a relationship which buckled as the ImClone scandal erupted in the months after their Mexican soiree.
“They’ve shared their last holiday together,” a Stewart acquaintance said after Pasternak left the witness box Friday. “She just lost her only access to a billionaire,” another observer said.
PASTERNAK’S path to testifying against her pal began little more than six months after their Baja break when the feds subpoenaed her to give evidence before a grand jury.
She pleaded with Stewart to cover her legal bills and asked her to pay off $150,000 of her mortgage, sources have told The Post.
Stewart ponied up for “tens of thousands of dollars” in legal fees, but refused to pay Pasternak’s mortgage.
Since then, the women, who used to speak daily, have barely exchanged a word. But the pair’s trip over the border was the hottest topic of conversation when Pasternak finally took the witness stand late Thursday.
Dressed in a demure black skirt suit rather than her usual tight jeans and spike-heeled shoes, Pasternak told jurors how she and Stewart had been sipping a drink on their balcony and lamenting the lack of male companionship when the name of ImClone founder Sam Waksal came up.
Stewart told Pasternak she had sold her ImClone shares during a stop on their flight to Las Ventanas after being tipped that Waksal was trying to sell his family’s shares held at Merrill Lynch, the jury heard.
Pasternak then landed what seemed to be a killer blow, saying that Stewart had later boasted, “Isn’t it nice to have brokers who tell you those things?”
The following morning, she tried to repair the damage, saying she wasn’t sure if Stewart had made the incriminating comment or whether it was “just a thought in my mind.”
Pasternak’s confusing testimony follows a pattern of increasingly erratic behavior.
Records filed at the Westport town clerk’s office show that she has failed to pay a string of bills, including $380,000 in federal taxes.
She recently put her beachfront cottage up for sale for $1.7 million and told colleagues she wants to leave town.
As Stewart’s lawyers argued in vain Friday for Pasternak’s testimony to be struck, the memory-challenged witness sat alone staring across the courtroom at the defendant, desperately trying to make eye contact.
Stewart didn’t give her erstwhile pal a glance.
THE PRICE OF FRIENDSHIP
How much deos a week on the beach cost? If you’re Martha Stewart and pal Mariana Pasternak, lodging, dining and spa treats run $16,848. The figures not converted to dollars on the bill below are in pesos when the exchange rate was 9.24.
Spa Services … $111.89
Spa Services … $105.67
Sea Grill …. $154.90
Hotel bill … $1,500/night