In a case about sex, lies and chromatography, a U.S. Secret Service ink expert went on trial Thursday on charges he testified falsely in the high-profile courtroom drama of homemaking icon Martha Stewart.
A lawyer for Larry Stewart, the ink expert charged with perjury, said her client was the victim of a witch hunt by a co-worker he once kissed and flirted heavily with over lunch. The two ink specialists later had a falling out.
“Sadly, this case is the final chapter in what has been a three-year feud between Larry Stewart and Susan Fortunato,” his attorney, Judith Wheat, told jurors during her opening statement in federal court.
She said Fortunato, who testified that Stewart lied 71 times as an expert witness at the Martha Stewart trial, once brought a sexual harassment complaint against her client and later admitted it was false.
Wheat said the hard feelings between the once-friendly co-workers “came to a head when Larry Stewart was chosen by prosecutors to be their ink expert in the Martha Stewart trial instead of Ms. Fortunato.”
Federal prosecutors have charged that Stewart, who is not related to the celebrity homemaker, took credit for Fortunato’s ink analysis on a worksheet during his testimony at the trial.
“We will prove to you in the trial that Larry Stewart lied in that courtroom,” said U.S. Assistant Attorney David Esseks. ”He lied about what he’d done. He lied about what he knew.” He did so, Esseks said, “in order to bolster his standing before the jury.”
Charged with two counts of perjury, Stewart faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of lying as a witness for the government about having conducted complex ink analysts tests such as chromatography and densitometry.
Martha Stewart and her broker were eventually convicted of obstruction of justice.
But shortly after that trial ended, prosecutors charged the Secret Service lab director with perjury.
As the second witness called by prosecutors Thursday, Fortunato said Stewart had trained her in ink analysis, eventually becoming “my mentor and also a very close friend.”
She described get-togethers with Stewart and others in which they would discuss work and current events, but added ”there were talks of a sexual nature as well.”