With Martha Stewart’s sentencing set for the near future, and years of appeals certain to come, we have yet to see the final chapter of her painful odyssey through the federal courts. But whatever the fates have in store, her trial surely had all the elements of an epic: a bold heroine with a tragic flaw, facing a powerful and implacable foe.
Rather than accept an ignoble plea bargain, she risked personal destruction by defending her integrity and insisting on a trial. Just as honorably, the prosecutors accepted the challenge of overcoming Stewart’s seemingly invincible celebrity, which required them to prove her a liar and a cheat.
