Hi Jeff,
Looks like the "smoking gun" has shown up...
From an earlier post of mine:
There's also a bit of information that I haven't seen repeated recently, so maybe the information is incorrect or has already been discredited or dismissed. Supposedly, someone accompanying Martha on the Cabo trip (presumably Mariana Pasternak, the real-estate broker) was tipped (presumably by Martha) and this other person then called her husband (or ex-husband), a dentist if I recall correctly, back in Westport(?) and he also sold whatever ImClone shares he may have held. Again, to repeat, don't take this additional information as the Gospel, because it came out originally shortly after the scandal broke, and proper investigation may have already discredited it or revealed it to be incorrect. But if it's true, then the Feds may indeed have established a chain of events, and may indeed have their smoking gun for both insider trading charges and obstruction of justice charges. We'll have to wait and see.
Message 18531881
And in today's news...
thestreet.com
Stewart Friend Drops Bomb
By Gregg Greenberg
TheStreet.com Staff Reporter
2/19/2004 5:33 PM EST
Updated from 1:27 p.m. EST
A traveling companion of Martha Stewart stuck a knife into the back of her longtime friend Thursday, testifying that the domestic diva claimed to know about the frantic efforts of ImClone Systems founder Sam Waksal to unload his shares in the biotech company.
"I remember Martha saying that Sam was talking funny at the Christmas party, that he was trying to sell his stock, that his daughter was trying to sell her stock, and Merrill Lynch didn't sell," Mariana Pasternak testified in Stewart's criminal obstruction trial in Lower Manhattan. Merrill Lynch refused to allow Sam Waksal to transfer his ImClone shares into his daughter's account on the date of Stewart's sale.
Pasternak also said Stewart enthusiastically praised Merrill private client broker Peter Bacanovic, through whom she sold her stake in ImClone Systems.
"She said, 'Isn't it nice to have a broker who tells you these things?'" testified Mariana Pasternak, the Westport, Conn., realtor with whom Stewart vacationed for several days after selling the shares on Dec. 27, 2001.
Prosecutors claim it was knowledge of Waksal's efforts to unload his shares that trade that led Stewart to sell. Pasternak's testimony, which covered a conversation she had with Stewart in Mexico on Dec. 30, 2001, is probably the most explicit evidence jurors have heard about what Stewart knew.
"She said, 'His stock is going down and I sold mine,'" Pasternak said.
KJC |
