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American Morning
Martha Stewart Trial
Aired February 19, 2004 - 09:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The end of the prosecution's case is drawing near in the Martha Stewart trial. We'll check in with Jeff Toobin, as we see pictures of Martha Stewart who just arrived minutes ago to the courtroom.
And, Jeff, we were just chatting a little bit about what's happened in the case so far. The most serious charges, security fraud, also seem to be, some people say, the weakest part of the prosecution's case. And in fact, the former attorney for Martha Stewart's company, a guy named Gregory Blatt (ph), testified on the stand that he was the one who urged Martha Stewart to make that very personal statement that, to some degree, is at the center of a lot of this part of the trial. What was the impact and the importance of his testimony?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Soledad, I am one of those people who think it's one of the weakest parts to the case, because What happened was, this was a crisis for Martha Stewart, and of course it was a crisis for her company. The company rallied around and they said, how do we deal with this? Gregory Blatt testified that they got a corporate strategy together to try to respond to the charges, and those responses are the heart of the securities fraud count against Martha Stewart. It seems to me that that was much more a group decision rather than an individual decision by Martha Stewart, whereas the heart of the case against her, and I think the much stronger part of the case, is simply that she lied to investigators and conspired to obstruct justice.
O'BRIEN: So if Gregory Blatt says, I encouraged Martha Stewart, along with some other people, that she should go out there and make some public statements about the company, does that then help Martha Stewart's case? Does that take the heat off her?
TOOBIN: Well, it may and it may not. The argument that the prosecution will make is that those public statements that the company made were all at their root based on Martha Stewart telling them a false story of what happened. So the prosecution will argue that Blatt and the rest of the people at the Martha Stewart company were intermediaries of getting Martha Stewart's false story out to the public.
But, the fact that there were so many intermediaries and the fact that it doesn't really seem to have been Martha Stewart's agenda to prop up her stock price, that never really came up in conversation. It's just sort of the general attempt to help the company. I think that's going to make the securities fraud charge tough to make for the prosecution. O'BRIEN: Also on the stand, Marianna Pastroneck (ph), who is a neighbor and very close friend for a long time of Martha Stewart, close friend, and yet many people would say what she's expected to say could really hurt Martha.
TOOBIN: It really is going to be a dramatic day. Remember, what happened on December 27th, 2001 was that Martha Stewart, an editor from her magazine and Marianna Pastroneck took a private plane from Connecticut towards Cavasalucas (ph) in Mexico. They stopped in San Antonio, where Martha Stewart made her fateful phone call to Douglas Faneuil, who told her about the stock trade that Sam Waksal, the head of ImClone was making. Marianna Pastroneck will testify, according to the prosecution that Martha Stewart, sometime that weekend, told her that Sam Waksal had been selling stock. That would appear to be inconsistent with what she said to investigators, which was that she didn't know that Sam Waksal was selling stock, that she sold her stock because she had this preexisting agreement to sell at $60 a share. So it would be really an excruciating moment to see Marianna Pastroneck, in effect, turn on her best friend.
O'BRIEN: Prosecutors say they're expecting to wrap up their case very soon, maybe as soon as tomorrow. Jeff Toobin, thanks, as always.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 19, 2004 - 09:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The end of the prosecution's case is drawing near in the Martha Stewart trial. We'll check in with Jeff Toobin, as we see pictures of Martha Stewart who just arrived minutes ago to the courtroom.
And, Jeff, we were just chatting a little bit about what's happened in the case so far. The most serious charges, security fraud, also seem to be, some people say, the weakest part of the prosecution's case. And in fact, the former attorney for Martha Stewart's company, a guy named Gregory Blatt (ph), testified on the stand that he was the one who urged Martha Stewart to make that very personal statement that, to some degree, is at the center of a lot of this part of the trial. What was the impact and the importance of his testimony?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Soledad, I am one of those people who think it's one of the weakest parts to the case, because What happened was, this was a crisis for Martha Stewart, and of course it was a crisis for her company. The company rallied around and they said, how do we deal with this? Gregory Blatt testified that they got a corporate strategy together to try to respond to the charges, and those responses are the heart of the securities fraud count against Martha Stewart. It seems to me that that was much more a group decision rather than an individual decision by Martha Stewart, whereas the heart of the case against her, and I think the much stronger part of the case, is simply that she lied to investigators and conspired to obstruct justice.
O'BRIEN: So if Gregory Blatt says, I encouraged Martha Stewart, along with some other people, that she should go out there and make some public statements about the company, does that then help Martha Stewart's case? Does that take the heat off her?
TOOBIN: Well, it may and it may not. The argument that the prosecution will make is that those public statements that the company made were all at their root based on Martha Stewart telling them a false story of what happened. So the prosecution will argue that Blatt and the rest of the people at the Martha Stewart company were intermediaries of getting Martha Stewart's false story out to the public.
But, the fact that there were so many intermediaries and the fact that it doesn't really seem to have been Martha Stewart's agenda to prop up her stock price, that never really came up in conversation. It's just sort of the general attempt to help the company. I think that's going to make the securities fraud charge tough to make for the prosecution. O'BRIEN: Also on the stand, Marianna Pastroneck (ph), who is a neighbor and very close friend for a long time of Martha Stewart, close friend, and yet many people would say what she's expected to say could really hurt Martha.
TOOBIN: It really is going to be a dramatic day. Remember, what happened on December 27th, 2001 was that Martha Stewart, an editor from her magazine and Marianna Pastroneck took a private plane from Connecticut towards Cavasalucas (ph) in Mexico. They stopped in San Antonio, where Martha Stewart made her fateful phone call to Douglas Faneuil, who told her about the stock trade that Sam Waksal, the head of ImClone was making. Marianna Pastroneck will testify, according to the prosecution that Martha Stewart, sometime that weekend, told her that Sam Waksal had been selling stock. That would appear to be inconsistent with what she said to investigators, which was that she didn't know that Sam Waksal was selling stock, that she sold her stock because she had this preexisting agreement to sell at $60 a share. So it would be really an excruciating moment to see Marianna Pastroneck, in effect, turn on her best friend.
O'BRIEN: Prosecutors say they're expecting to wrap up their case very soon, maybe as soon as tomorrow. Jeff Toobin, thanks, as always.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
