These are Elizabeth Koch's notes on the Martha Stewart trial.
Lots of witnesses today. Testimonies ranged from hardly relevant to crucial, in direct proportion to their entertainment quotient. The mix of quirky personalities, sparring debates, constant jokes and thrilled laughter moved things along and even brought to the courtroom a certain charm. U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum regularly asserts her to keep things fair, speedy (hard to believe, I know), and most importantly, entertaining. A bored jury is a hung jury, in my opinion.
Witness #1: Peter Melley, NASD regulator and investigator, finishes with a fizzle
Michael Schachter, the assistant U.S. attorney, tries desperately to tie an announcement Stewart made in a June 19 Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) conference to fluctuations in her stock price. He fails. During the meeting, Stewart briefly announced, "My sale of ImClone stock was entirely lawful; I acted on information available to the public. I met with SEC officers and cooperated in full," a statement she'd be a fool not to make. There was no arguable affect on her stock price before during, or after the conference—its oscillations are arbitrary and could be used to prove anything.
Witness #2: Kevin Gruneich, research analyst for Bear Stearns
Gruneich began covering MSLO on September 24 1999, when the company announced they'd be going public. William Burke, the Number Three prosecuting attorney, asked Gruneich to read sections of the company's IPO disclaimer. It went something like this: "The price of this stock is highly dependent on Martha Stewart's talents; loss of her services would have material adverse affects on business." And further down, "Our success depends on the value of the brand; if Stewart's public image is tarnished, all intellectual property rights connected to her name would depreciate." Prosecution once again suggests that Stewart was more concerned with her stock price than her business, as if providing people with goods and services they want and need— be they instructions on how to weave switches into Christmas wreaths or the appropriate weed-picking posture—has nothing to do with anything. What's prosecution ultimately trying to say—that her company's earnings reached one billion (that is, before the indictment) because she's a scam artist?
At some point during Gruneich's testimony, Burke requests a sidebar. Up until a day or two ago, most jurors took the break as an opportunity to hypnotize themselves with dust motes; now they mingle and giggle, leaning forward or cranking around to gossip with their neighbors. The jury at this point appears anything but fractured—they may even be happy to be here. Happy to be chosen, happy with their team.
After sidebar, Morvillo hardly bothers with crossing.
Witness: Larry Stewart, Chief Secret Service Forensic Scientist (no relation to Martha)
Stewart is peppy, upbeat, bright, and hard not to like. When Burke asks about his expertise, he says, "I was bestowed the title of national ink expert, of all things," he says, deprecating his position somewhat disingenuously—he obviously not only takes great pride in what he does, but has contagious passion. Enough to keep a courtroom full of restless reporters and saturated jurors spellbound. He explains the tests he performed on the December 21 worksheet Bacanovic used to prove his $60 sale agreement with Stewart, tests that would determine whether its various ink notations can be sourced back to the same pen. The first examination involved infrared testing, which uses light outside our sight range to differentiate between seemingly same-colored inks. The "@60" notation evanesced, while the other markings appeared black. A second test used chromatography to determine ink recipes, a process that breaks ink up into its various ingredients. Stewart's preliminary conclusion, one he submitted in an August 2002 report to the government, was that Bacanovic used a different pen to make the @60 notation from all the other entries.
Peter Bacanovic's law firm of choice—Goodwin Proctor—certainly has a style: plow through the gate like bulls, straight for the witness's gut. Richard Strassberg, Bac's Number Two attorney, attacks Stewart using the same tactic his co-lawyer, David Apfel, used against Douglas Faneuil.
"Are you aware," Strassberg voice climbs with sarcasm, "of the ASTM ink strandards?"
"Yes," Stewart says. "I wrote them." The jury loves it.
Strassberg's voice tips a pitch higher, "Is it true, Mr. Stewart, that these tests do not enable you to match pen to ink?"
Stewart starts to qualify.
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