- NEW YORK (Reuters)
-- Jurors in the Martha Stewart case were told by the judge to consider
the trendsetter's fate separately from that of her co-defendant stock broker
just before they began their deliberations on Wednesday.
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- Stewart and her former Merrill Lynch broker, Peter Bacanovic,
are charged with hiding the reason behind the domestic trendsetter's suspicious
sale of ImClone Systems Inc. stock on Dec. 27, 2001.
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- Federal prosecutors say that Bacanovic ordered his assistant
to tip Stewart that ImClone's founder was dumping all his shares. The two
defendants say they had a pre-existing deal to sell Stewart's ImClone shares
if they fell to $60.
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- "You are to consider the charges separately against
each defendant ... as if that defendant were being tried alone," U.S.
District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum said at the beginning of jury instructions.
"You can find one guilty without finding the other guilty.
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- "The fact the defendants are being tried together
is not evidence of anything," she said.
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- The eight woman and four men will begin deliberations
after the judge finishes giving instructions.
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- Neither Stewart, a former model and stockbroker who founded
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., nor Bacanovic took the witness stand.
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- Stewart scored a major victory on Friday when Cedarbaum
dismissed a count of securities fraud, the most serious charge against
her, which carried a possible 10-year prison sentence, on grounds of a
lack of evidence.
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- During the trial, prosecutors called 21 witnesses including
Douglas Faneuil, Bacanovic's former assistant, who said his boss ordered
him to tip Stewart that ImClone founder Sam Waksal was dumping shares in
his own company. Faneuil, one of the government's most damaging witnesses,
said the trendsetter sold all her nearly 4,000 ImClone shares after hearing
the news.
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- Stewart's defense attorney conceded on Tuesday that the
celebrity homemaker received the secret stock tip but said she was too
smart to botch the cover-up she is charged with committing.
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- The risky gambit by lawyer Robert Morvillo, on the eve
of jury deliberations, marked the first outright admission in the closely
watched trial that she had received the tip.
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- The 62-year-old Stewart faces one count of conspiracy,
two counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of agency
proceedings. Each count carries a possible prison term of five years and
a $250,000 fine.
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- Bacanovic, 41, is charged with one count each of conspiracy,
making false statements, making a false document, perjury and obstruction
of agency proceedings. Each of the five counts carries a possible maximum
prison term of five years and a $250,000 fine.
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