Martha Stewart sentencing delayed
A judge has delayed domestic guru Martha Stewart’s sentencing by three weeks while the dollar billionaire’s lawyers prepare a bid for a new trial.
Sentencing for Stewart and former stockbroker Peter Bacanovic, originally set for June 17, was rescheduled for July 8 in New York.
Stewart’s lawyers said Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum granted the delay to give them time to submit a request for a new trial based on perjury charges filed against a government witness.
Larry Stewart, a Secret Service ink expert, was accused in May of lying eight separate times on the witness stand, mostly during testimony he gave about a worksheet prepared by Bacanovic.
“The motion for a new trial, expected to be made later this week, will contend that the jury was unfairly affected by the alleged perjury of government witness Larry Stewart,” Stewart lawyers Robert Morvillo and John Tigue said in a statement.
Stewart and Bacanovic are expected to be sentenced to 10 to 16 months in federal prison for lying about why Stewart sold shares just before the price plunged.
Legal experts have said the new-trial request will be a long shot because Larry Stewart’s testimony mainly concerned a charge of falsifying documents against Bacanovic – a count on which he was found innocent.
