Martha Stewart is begging for mercy.
Lawyers for the queen of domesticity have pleaded with the feds to abandon their criminal probe of her alleged insider trading of ImClone shares.
“It was like they were trying to seek leniency in advance of anything happening,” a source told The Post yesterday.
With a criminal probe gathering speed, Stewart’s legal team, led by respected defense lawyer Bob Morvillo, met with securities fraud investigators at the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jim Comey on Thursday.
Her lawyers argued that the case should rest with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which had already indicated its intention of filing civil charges against Stewart relating to her December 2001 sale of 3,928 shares.
“Her lawyers were saying that there was no need to charge her with a crime,” a source familiar with the meeting said.
Stewart has argued she had a pre-existing arrangement with her broker to sell her ImClone shares when they fell below $60.
She’s maintained she was not aware ImClone chairman Sam Waksal, who’s since pleaded guilty to securities fraud, was also unloading his shares to beat an adverse FDA announcement about ImClone’s new cancer drug.