As part of a deal to testify against Martha Stewart and others who may be implicated in a possible trading case, Douglas Faneuil, an assistant to Stewart's stockbroker at Merrill Lynch, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge that he was paid off to stay mum about an insider stock tip allegedly given to the domestic diva, the Associated Press reports.

Last December, Stewart, now 60, unloaded nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone stock just before the biotech company's stock price plunged because the Food and Drug Administration would not approve its highly touted new cancer drug, Erbitux.

Court papers did not identify by name the "tippee" who received the insider information, says AP, which goes on to quote Faneuil's lawyer, Marvin Pickholz, on the subject of whether or not the "tippee" was indeed Stewart.

As he told reporters outside the courtroom: "If you guys read this information and you can't fill in the blanks, you're in serious trouble."

Surveying the situation, Seth Taube, a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer now in private practice, told Newsday of Faneuil's maneuver: "This public plea is designed to convince Martha Stewart to lay down her sword and admit that she traded on inside information."

As Taube explained, "The idea is, you flip Faneuil, then you flip (Faneuil's boss and Stewart's stockbroker, Peter) Bacanovic, and then you get Stewart. She is clearly the top of the pyramid in this little triangle."

Both Faneuil and Bacanovic were fired from Merrill Lynch on Wednesday, after Faneuil entered his plea, NBC News reports.

Stewart, who has denied any wrongdoing, has said all along that she had a standing order with her stockbroker to dump the ImClone shares if they were to fall below $60. Faneuil, 26, initially told the same story to investigators but later changed his account, admitting that there had been no such order.

Contacted by AP, Stewart's spokeswoman, Allyn Magrino, declined to comment on Faneuil's plea.

Meanwhile, shares of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. have fallen more than 60 percent since news of the doyenne's alleged connection to the ImClone trading scandal first broke in June. On Wednesday, the company's shares took another hit, falling 45 cents, or 6.2 percent, to close at $6.80 on the New York Stock Exchange.