Faneuil Praised, Pilloried in Stewart Summations

"If you believe Douglas Faneuil's testimony, then this trial is over," Schachter argued. "He proved beyond a reasonable doubt every count in the indictment."

Faneuil's testimony is part of an arrangement with prosecutors under which he will be charged with a misdemeanor and receive a still-unspecified sentence. Schachter argued that a safer route for the former broker's aide was silence.

"Why on earth would somebody make this up?" Schachter asked. "There were no subpoenas. He came in on his own."

The prosecutor trained much of his summation on the $60 stop-loss story, saying it was simply the quickest lie at hand to co-defendants who believed they were beyond the law.

"Martha Stewart probably thought she would never get caught," Schachter said, arguing that was the only way to explain Bacanovic's first impulse to explain the trade as part of a tax-reduction strategy when the sale was carried out at a profit.

"It was a terrible story because it made no sense," Schachter said. "It was the first thing that popped into his head."

Bacanovic lawyer Strassberg argued it's Faneuil's story that should be doubted.

"He had an extreme motivation to shape the truth, this from a person who time and time again embellishes and twists the facts," Strassberg said. "There's no support for these charges at all -- like a house of cards, it has no foundation."

Strassberg was short on refutation, long on character impeachment, describing Faneuil as someone comfortable with the techniques of artifice -- even when he was on the stand.

"He mimicked people," Strassberg said. "He acted out things. What does that tell you about the kind of person he is?"

The long interval between Stewart's sale and when Faneuil came forward with his story suggests fear of his own prosecution got the better of him.