Jurors to decide Stewart fate next week

Lawyers in the Martha Stewart trial will deliver their closing arguments early next week, and 12 jurors will begin deciding the fate of the style guru next Wednesday.

US District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum set the schedule after Stewart’s lawyers presented a defence that took less than an hour – and did not include an appearance on the witness stand by Stewart herself.

The only witness on Stewart’s behalf yesterday was Steven Pearl, a lawyer who took notes in her February 4, 2002, interview with federal prosecutors and securities regulators.

The government claims Stewart lied repeatedly that day, including saying she did not know whether there was a record that stockbroker Peter Bacanovic had left her a message on December 27, 2001, the day she sold ImClone Systems stock.

But Pearl’s scribbled notes show Stewart may have been responding instead to a question about what time Bacanovic called her that day.

Under cross-examination by prosecutors, Pearl admitted that his notes were incomplete and that there may have been a question about the message log he did not write down.

Referring to his notes and a memo he prepared after the interview, Pearl said: “Neither one is a verbatim transcript.”

Neither Stewart nor the broker took the witness stand. Their lawyers are gambling instead that jurors will decide the government has not met its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

The government claims Stewart sold her 3,928 ImClone shares because she was tipped that ImClone CEO Sam Waksal was frantically trying to sell his own. A negative report related to an ImClone cancer drug soon sent the stock tumbling.

Stewart and Bacanovic claim they had made a plan before Stewart sold to get rid of the shares if ImClone’s stock price fell below 60. Prosecutors say that was a cover story.