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May 21st, 2004, 02:59 PM
Perjury charge against Martha Stewart witness
Martha Stewart is not for fags? What is for fags? Politics.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Federal authorities Friday charged a government witness from the Martha Stewart trial with lying on the witness stand, but said the false testimony did not make her conviction invalid.
Prosecutors said they had discovered false statements made on the stand by Larry F. Stewart, a national ink expert who works at the Secret Service.
A government news release said prosecutors did not believe the charges called into question the "integrity or validity" of the convictions of the home fashion mogul and broker Peter Bacanovic.
"We are quite confident that the false testimony will have no impact on the convictions ... for both factual and legal reasons," U.S. Attorney David Kelley said at a news conference.
Martha Stewart was convicted March 5 of lying about why she sold 3,928 shares of ImClone Systems stock in 2001, just before the stock price plunged. (Full story)
The two perjury counts against Larry Stewart, 46, of Bethesda, Maryland, carry up to 10 years in prison. He surrendered to federal agents earlier in the day and was expected to appear in court later Friday. He is no relation to Martha Stewart.
The government said it had uncovered eight separate false statements made by Larry Stewart about two subjects.
One was his claim that he participated in an August 2002 examination of a key piece of evidence, a brokerage worksheet that Bacanovic used to track Stewart's portfolio at Merrill Lynch & Co. Prosecutors said he also lied in saying he was familiar with a book proposal on ink analysis; the government says he actually had no knowledge of the proposal.
During the trial, Larry Stewart testified that a notation of "(at)60" on the worksheet had been made in a different ink from other marks on the sheet.
Larry Stewart said infrared and ultraviolet light tests had confirmed differences between the "(at)60" entry and other marks.
"The '(at)60' entry is a different ink than the remaining entries on the document," the scientist said.
Martha Stewart had contended she had an agreement with her broker to sell Imclone shares when the price fell to $60 per share. Prosecutors suggested the allegedly different ink on the reference to 60 showed it was added later.
Under cross-examination, the ink expert had testified it was impossible to tell how many pens had been used to mark on the document. Bacanovic's team contended he simply used different pens in his work.
Bacanovic was cleared on the only charge related to the worksheet -- the charge that he added the "(at)60" notation to support the alleged cover story for why Martha Stewart sold ImClone stock.
Shares in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. had jumped 15 percent Friday afternoon when news of the pending announcement broke.
Larry Stewart has been placed on suspension by the Secret Service, Kelley said.
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