Martha Stewart’s jurors looked stunned yesterday when the domestic diva’s legal team called a sudden halt to her defense after questioning only one witness for less than 17 minutes.
One juror’s eyes widened and another gave a confused frown when Stewart lawyer Robert Morvillo told the judge the defense was resting, moments after the government finished a brief cross-examination of the only Stewart witness, a lawyer named Steven Pearl.
But before the jury was excused until closing arguments Monday, the government landed one last blow to the heart of the defense case – that Stewart and her co-accused, stockbroker Peter Bacanovic, had a pre-existing agreement to sell her ImClone shares if the price dropped to $60.
Stewart’s financial assistant Heidi DeLuca, who was called as a Bacanovic witness, maintained during her testimony Tuesday that Bacanovic discussed with her a plan to sell Stewart’s ImClone shares if the price dropped to about $60.
But yesterday, the government played a portion of a tape of Bacanovic’s interview with the SEC only weeks after the ImClone sale in which he flatly denied ever discussing the $60 plan with DeLuca.
“I never get into that level of detail with Heidi,” Bacanovic said dismissively.
The government charges that Stewart and Bacanovic fabricated the $60 agreement to cover up the real reason for Stewart’s sale: that she received a secret tip that her buddy, ImClone founder Sam Waksal, was trying to dump his family’s shares.
They heard Pearl, Stewart’s only witness, testify about notes he took in an FBI and SEC interview with the good living guru soon after her ImClone sale – a meeting in which the government claims Stewart gave false statements.
Stewart, 62, is accused of claiming she did not know whether there was a record of a message Bacanovic left at her office hours before she sold her shares – even though she altered a computer record of the message before changing it back only days before the interview.
Stewart faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of the five federal counts against her.
* GET SOME REST: Martha Stewart’s defense team rested its case after calling only one witness, junior lawyer Steven Pearl, who presented evidence disputing the accuracy of the FBI’s notes of an interview in which the domestic diva is accused of lying.
* LET’S GO TO THE TAPE: Jurors heard stockbroker Peter Bacanovic in his own words dispute a critical recollection of his witness, Stewart financial assistant Heidi DeLuca, when prosecutors played a tape of an SEC interview with Bacanovic soon after Stewart’s suspicious ImClone stock trade in Dec. 2001.
* INK-STAINED WRETCH: Prosecutors called back to the stand ink expert, Larry Stewart, who claimed the defense used an unreliable machine to test the ink on a stock worksheet Bacanovic is accused of doctoring to back up his claims he had a pre-existing agreement to sell Stewart’s ImClone stock.