Judge Questions Stewart Prosecutor

With Martha Stewart looking on, a federal appeals judge Thursday sharply questioned a prosecutor about why no hearing was held into alleged lies told by a juror in the lifestyle entrepreneur’s trial.

The exchange came as lawyers for Stewart, freed from prison this month and now serving five months of house arrest, sought to persuade a three-judge panel to overturn her conviction for lying to the government.

Stewart is basing her appeal partly on allegations that juror Chappell Hartridge lied repeatedly on his jury questionnaire, including about a prior arrest, to win selection.

Judge Richard C. Wesley of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals asked prosecutor Michael Schachter whether the trial had been tainted because the judge in the case, Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum of U.S. District Court, held no hearing into the alleged lies by Hartridge.

Wesley mused about why jurors might actively want to serve in certain high-profile cases: “I don’t like rich people. I don’t like people like Martha Stewart who are worth millions of dollars.”

“The problem is, why did he lie?” Wesley continued. “And there is no answer to that because Judge Cedarbaum didn’t do the hearing.”

Schachter defended the judge and said the conviction must be upheld, saying Cedarbaum had no obligation to hold a hearing because the defense failed to show that Hartridge was deliberately dishonest.

Stewart was convicted in March 2004 of lying to the government about why she sold nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems Inc. stock the day before a negative government ruling about an ImClone drug.

The prosecutor cited what he called “ample evidence” of Stewart’s guilt and pointed out that her next call after selling the stock was to Waksal’s office, demanding to know why the stock was falling.

Waksal is serving a seven-year prison sentence after admitting that he sold his own ImClone shares because he knew in advance that the government would decline to review the cancer drug, Erbitux.

The appellate panel gave no indication of when it might rule.

Stewart has said she is appealing the case to clear her name. She appeared in a good mood, joking with marshals at the courthouse in New York.

She fought through a phalanx of cameras afterward -- a crush so chaotic that several photographers were knocked into a bank of slushy snow.

Shares of her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, fell 9 cents to $22.47 on the New York Stock Exchange.