Federal prosecutors yesterday accused disgraced domestic diva Martha Stewart of trying to save her own skin by seeking to “humiliate and embarrass” one of the jurors who convicted her of lying.
In papers filed yesterday with Manhattan federal judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, prosecutors characterized Stewart’s charges that juror Chappell Hartridge lied to get on the jury as a desperate attempt to undermine the jury system – and said they weren’t even worth investigating at a court hearing.
“It is quite revealing that Stewart would go to such desperate lengths to discredit a juror,” the legal papers say, adding that the charges against the juror are “designed for a single purpose – to humiliate and embarrass Mr. Hartridge and to do so for no purpose other than to cast doubt on the validity of [her conviction] in the public eye.”
The government was responding to a request for a new trial submitted by Stewart’s lawyers last week, with claims that Hartridge had lied about his past to get on the jury, just so that he could have a hand in convicting the millionaire homemaker.
Stewart’s lawyers claimed she should get a new trial because Hartridge lied when he failed to disclose on a jury questionnaire that he was arrested in 1997 and accused of beating his girlfriend.
“Stewart has resorted to launching personal attacks against Mr. Hartridge in the hope that something will stick,” the legal filing says, in arguing for Cedarbaum to dismiss the new trial bid.
Hartridge drew notice after last month’s verdict when he told reporters the conviction was a “victory for the little guys.”