Douglas Faneuil, the star witness for the Government in the Martha Stewart trial, took the stand today and admitted he told a lie:

Former brokerage assistant Douglas Faneuil, the government's star witness in the Martha Stewart trial, testified Tuesday that he illegally relayed information about one client to another and then lied about it. "I did something illegal," Faneuil said shortly after taking the witness stand. "I told one client what another was doing and lied to cover it up."

Prosecutors have said Faneuil's boss, stockbroker Peter Bacanovic, told Faneuil to pass along a "secret" tip to Stewart on Dec. 27, 2001 - that ImClone Systems founder Sam Waksal was trying to get rid of his shares. Waksal later admitted using insider knowledge about a negative government report to illegally dump his own company stock.

His testimony contradicts Stewart and Bacanovic's claim that they had a pre-existing agreement to sell Stewart's ImClone stock when its price fell below $60 per share.

We'll be discussing the case at 6pm ET on the Dan Abrams show on MSNBC--as well as the latest developments in today's Kobe Bryant hearing.