Read The Recorder‘s roundup of the stock-option backdating scandal. There won’t be a test later … but there might be a subpoena.
And while she testified under direct examination that she knew that properly expensing backdated options would result in a negative “charge” on a company’s balance sheet, she told Marmaro that she didn’t know what a charge was.
After the cross-examination Wednesday, Marmaro said Weaver’s testimony bore little credibility.
“When you look at the totality of the circumstances, it’s clear that what this witness was referring to doesn’t have anything to do with the conduct at issue in this case,” he said in a late-afternoon phone interview.
“No one knows what it was about,” he added, “including the witness.”
Weaver’s testimony wasn’t the only issue of contention taken up in morning arguments. Breyer also discussed the lengthy cross-examinations that Marmaro and his partner, Jack DiCanio, have been conducting.
Breyer said he’s grown frustrated with the questioning, since much of it seems to focus on issues that aren’t under dispute. Marmaro argued that it’s necessary to bring up small details of witnesses’ recollections to explain his client’s side of the case, and said he’s worried that Breyer’s frustration is palpable to the jury.
That concern about the jury’s reaction stretched to the handling of Marmaro’s motion for a mistrial. Breyer allowed it to be made while the jury was outside the courtroom, though he did not seem to think it had much of a chance.
Marmaro told the judge that appellate courts have overturned convictions in cases where a judge allowed testimony with contextual doubts.
“I have to take those risks, Mr. Marmaro,” Breyer said. “That comes with the territory.”
