NEW YORK, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Martha Stewart could face a tax-evasion probe if she is acquitted in her New York stock trading trial or gets a hung jury, the New York Post said Friday.
If that's the outcome Internal Revenue Service investigators will push to launch a tax-evasion probe based on testimony heard at her trial relating to her ImClone stock sale.
Stewart's financial assistant, Heidi DeLuca, testified Tuesday she followed Stewart's instruction to bill the company for an 11-day vacation to Mexico and Panama over the 2002 New Year period.
"You could easily see something happening here," a source told the Post. "Let's just say, certain people's ears have been pricked."
Prosecutor Michael Schachter also grilled Jim Follo, the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia chief financial officer, who said Stewart had occasionally submitted expenses that "I don't feel either supports the corporate policy or the tax policy."
Before any tax investigation is approved, the IRS officers would have to win approval from the Justice Department's tax division and the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office, the newspaper said.
