as her company's chief creative officer
A local lawyer and legal professor weigh in on the domestic maven’s trial
While Martha Stewart awaits sentencing and prepares to turn over control of
the company she built over the last two decades, local lawyers say the domestic
celebrity’s legal troubles were largely of her own making.
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Ryan Denner, a trial lawyer with Denner Associates, which has offices in New Bedford and Boston, said it’s easy to second-guess Stewart’s attorneys when the case has already been lost. Denner noted that Stewart’s case was unique because she was accused of committing crimes when being interviewed by the government.
In a verdict delivered on March 5, Stewart was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and two counts of making false statements when questioned by investigators about the sale of her ImClone pharmaceutical stock late in 2001.
As far as the lessons that lawyers can learn from Stewart’s case, Denner said it’s questionable what any attorney could have done differently in a similar situation.
While Stewart waited until after having been questioned by the government several times before calling in counsel with more experience in federal trading cases, she nonetheless opened herself up in those early weeks to future contradictions with skilled lawyers by her side. And there would be no reason not to let her talk, Denner said, as she continued to profess her innocence in receiving information about a flurry of stock sales by the owner of ImClone.
Denner said that putting a defendant on the stand is always a “calculated risk.” In Stewart’s case, he said the former stockbroker might have done little to help sway the jury to her side. He noted that by putting Stewart on the stand, her defense team would have opened her up to a whole new line of questions about changes she had made in her appointment book (and then changed back), her own years spent working as a broker and grilling on a variety of her own statements when initially questioned by the government.
“If they had thought she could offer up good answers, I’m sure they’d have put her up there,” said Denner, who also mentioned Stewart’s abrasive reputation. “However bad things might have been going, the risk of putting her up there must have outweighed the benefit.” While Stewart stepped down from her seat on the board and chief creative officer title at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. last week, she will take on a newly created position of founding editorial director.
But there’s one piece of advice that both Denner and Debra Cohen, professor at the Southern New England School of Law in North Dartmouth, Mass., impart. “There’s a lot of issues at work in Stewart’s situation,” said Cohen. “There’s questions of human error and whether or not she spoke carefully enough. I would hope that any advice she received from her legal team adhered to the old saying, ‘Honesty is the best policy.’”
Bloomberg News contributed to this story.
