What’s more, in a cross-examination of Stewart, the rest of her life would be open to ruthless scrutiny. Wasn’t it true that the State of New York had charged her with lying about the location of her residence in order to avoid some taxes? In that case, didn’t she testify under oath that she hadn’t appeared on the “Today” show in 1991—and wasn’t that testimony false? Was it true that the state concluded that the information Stewart supplied “could not always be relied upon”? (Stewart lost the tax case and ultimately paid the state more than two hundred thousand dollars.) Morvillo could imagine other cross-examination avenues: Ms. Stewart, let me direct your attention to May, 1997. Did you call your neighbor’s landscaper in East Hampton a “fucking liar,” then attempt to run him down in your Suburban truck? Did he scream that you were crushing him? Did you pay him a settlement for civil damages? (The landscaper, Matthew Munnich, filed a complaint with the police, which did not result in any charges against Stewart, but she did pay him an undisclosed amount to preëmpt a civil lawsuit.) How would the imperious Stewart hold up under this kind of questioning? Morvillo was not prepared to find out. Even more important, he knew that, under federal sentencing guidelines, Stewart would face a longer sentence if Judge Cedarbaum thought she had lied on the witness stand. Given the way the case was going, and the likelihood of conviction, Morvillo didn’t want to take that risk, either.
There was no shortage of potential character witnesses willing to testify to Stewart’s good works. But they would have opened up what was known in the defense camp as “Chris Byron issues.” Christopher Byron and Jerry Oppenheimer had written scathing biographies of Stewart, and the prosecution could have sampled their most damning stories to challenge the evidence having to do with Stewart’s character. Would it affect your opinion of Ms. Stewart’s character, the prosecutor might ask, if you knew she acknowledged lying in public about her ex-husband’s ability to father children? Stewart had admitted to that, but, under the rules of evidence, the prosecution wouldn’t be required to prove the published stories of her misbehavior. Fair or not, the questions alone would do enough damage.
