NEW YORK, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Lawyers for style guru Martha Stewart and her broker rested their case Wednesday in a New York federal fraud and obstruction of justice trial.
The five-week trial ended without either Stewart or broker Peter Bacanovic testifying, the Washington Post reported.
The government accused Stewart of selling her shares of drug maker ImClone because Bacanovic passed along a tip that ImClone System head Samuel Waksal was dumping his shares ahead of bad regulatory news about a cancer drug.
Stewart and Bacanovic lawyers responded that Stewart sold her ImClone stock on Dec. 27, 2001, because she and Bacanovic had agreed to sell if the price fell to $60 -- as it did that day.
But prosecutors have charged and argued the two concocted the arrangement to conceal the allegedly real story: Stewart dumped her Imclone shares after Bacanovic told his assistant to break Merrill Lynch privacy rules and to tell Stewart that Waksal was selling all his shares.
Prosecutors say Bacanovic lied under oath about this and falsely made up a worksheet dated Dec. 21, 2001, purporting to support the $60 agreement.
Jury deliberations were expected to begin next week.
