Posted on 03/03/2005 4:04:47 PM PST by Former Military Chick
WASHINGTON : US lifestyle guru Martha Stewart was set to leave jail Friday after a five-month sentence for a stock scandal that boosted her career rather than dooming it.
Stewart's time in jail officially ends Sunday, but the federal prisons bureau can release prisoners on a Friday if their sentences end over the weekend, said US prisons spokeswoman Carla Wilson.
Supporters eagerly awaited her release from the Alderson minimum security prison in West Virginia, which inmates call "Camp Cupcake."
The news media were also outside the prison in force.
Stewart's reputation has made a massive public rebound during her time in Alderson, despite the conviction for lying about a dodgy stock sale.
She will serve five more months under house arrest at her 62-hectare (163-acre) country estate in Bedford, New York.
She will have to wear an electronic ankle bracelet tracking her movements.
Stewart may leave the property for 48 hours a week for work, which she already has lined up.
Indeed, Stewart, 63, has won a contract to host a knock-off of tycoon Donald Trump's successful NBC television reality show "The Apprentice."
She will also star in a show focusing on the same subjects that she built into a multi-million dollar lifestyle empire -- cooking, entertaining, decorating and home renovating.
"People love redemption stories," said "Apprentice" producer Mark Burnett. "You pay your price and Americans allow you to move on."
The businesswoman was convicted in March last year of lying to federal agents investigating her sale of nearly 4,000 shares in biotechnology company ImClone Systems.
She began serving her sentence in October.
Newsweek noted her post-conviction fame in its cover this week headlined: "Martha's Last Laugh: After Prison, She's Thinner, Wealthier and Ready for Prime Time."
However, the newsweekly is also in trouble for using the head of Stewart on the body of a model for the cover picture.
Shares of the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) empire, which she founded, have quadrupled in value since her sentencing in July.
Company shares were up 3.81 percent Thursday, reaching 33.26 dollars in afternoon trading.
In March 2004, she resigned as the company's a director and "chief creative officer" while accepting a new position of "founding editorial director."
According to Stewart's aides, the empire's founder is very optimistic about her future.
"This year, we usher in spring with an extra measure of gratitude, because the month of March not only marks the vernal equinox on the twentieth and the real start of our Northeast growing season, but also Martha's homecoming," Margaret Roach, editor in chief of Martha Stewart Living, wrote in the magazine's March edition.
Roach said Stewart will plant a garden in an old estate she has been renovating in Bedford.
"I can tell you she is, indeed, ready to get planting, having ordered her seeds and made extensive to-do lists, just as she would have done in any winter," the editor wrote.
Roach also recounted some of Stewart's prison activities.
"The tales were always surprising," she said.
Stewart foraged for wild greens such as dandelion on prison property "to augment the limited fresh vegetable offerings in the diet there," helped decorate the chapel for a memorial service and made microwave meals "with whatever very basic ingredients the commissary had for sale."
She also launched a yoga class that she taught for 10 inmates, spent time crocheting and used old ceramic molds to create a nativity scene for her mother.
Roach even told how Stewart had carried out a yoga pose called "downward-facing dog" in the visitors' room at the prison "from which she seamlessly moved into a headstand." - AFP
I learned how to decorate a home, how to do fabulous holiday decorations, how to garden and so much more. (I was good at this anyway but didn't know I could do it for a living until she woke me up) Her craft & collectible shows were a great learning experience. There were so many good things.
Thanks Martha!
****
Thanks too.
Hillary's wee cattle futures deal was NOT a "bribe",but a "favor" and I didn't ask you if SHE should have been punished.I asked you specifically about the trader,who pulled the scam. You don't even know what it's called,nor how it's done,so you ignored that part of the question,went straight into some nonsense about Hillary;which was also incorrect and ignored everything else.
People have lost everything they have,through no fault of their own and the USA damned near went belly up not once,but on several occasions because of unfettered and though not entirely illegal at that time,totally immoral actions of some.But you morons really don't care about any of this. All you MORONS ever do, is post utter and complete drivel about things you only imagine you have some sort of grasp of.
The Bank of England and the Monarchy was almost brought down,because of completely unfettered and should have been and almost all are now,criminal practices.
Since it's patently obvious,that morons see to confuse a not for profit organization,such as the NYSE,with law enforcement,please permit me to clear that #3 piece of shining stupidity with this explanation. Not possible,couldn't have been done,not part of the job description,couldn't be done if they'd wanted to,and last,but not least, what you imagine should happen doesn't happen in the real world and shouldn't.
Oh yes, and you're a complete wast of time.I've only replied back,because of the lurkers. You know nothing at all about what you're so giddily posting and with every post,you prove that that is the case.Sure,get rid of every single trading rule and law and see what happens.You'd be the first one on the ramparts yelling for people's heads and the resurection of Madame Guillotine!
Mark Rich and the UN OIL FOR FOOD SCAM are your ideals.I bet Soros is too. You are NO Conservative at all;you don't even understand the meaning of the word.
By the way, was she convicted of a felony and has she lost the right to ever vote again until she bribes a judge.
Me too........... if only because she started with a small catering operation and went from there. She DID IT!
Congrats!
;-)
ROFL
The second one,which apparently is the only one you sort of know about,was begun by yet another "friend",whom she pummeled into letting her join,whom she screwed over and was NOT that big a success at all. Nor did all of the "locals",or even many of her clientele "love" her. Truth to tell, many hated her and still do. And it is NOT because she got rich and famous. They're ALL mostly rich;if not famous.
I'm only just a teensy upset by people who claim to be Conservatives,but don't give a damn about lawbreakers and those who talk on this topic,who don't know the facts of it.
She didn't "care about and create excellence" at all. You've swallowed a pack of lies and propaganda put our by and for her. And if YOU own a small nursery,but your major venue for information was Martha Stewart's magazine and T.V. shows, the I pity your customers and you. There are and always have been lots of books about plants,that you should have consulted.Even dilettantes, such as Vita Sackville West, would have done you more good and then there are the for real experts such as Lutyens and Gertrude Jeykel! Hell,Martha hires people to do the work and write the articles.Her knowledge is a created myth...a fantasy! Even most of the recipes aren't hers.And Julia Child sued her,because Martha,in the beginning,fiddled a bit (and made them terrible!) Child's recipes and claimed them as Martha's own. LOL
I hate frauds,liars,cheats,con-artists, and especially unrepentant criminals;but then, I'm a Conservative.
"ONLY" -- yeh right, only. (sarcasm off)
You really haven't a clue;not a one!
Yeah, I have a feeling she'll do that and after her house arrest the judge will restore her rights by clearing the record.
At least you confirmed my suspicions that it was a felony and that she DID lose her rights to vote. I wasn't sure to be honest.
I think she is supposed to be coming out with a book soon on jail house relationships.
There wasn't a publisher alive,that she could talk into publishing her first book., She quite literally browbeat her husband into publishing and promotion it,above his own clients!
You're a real glutton for punishment...aren't you? Your fantasies about Martha are so far from the truth and factual history,that one would think that you'll believe anything at all.
Yes and she can't own a gun either (horror of horrors). She also can't drink a sip of alcohol until her probation is over. She'll wear a ankle bracelet everywhere she goes until her time is up which won't be too far without the permission of her probation officer (including grocery shopping or lunch with friends). She can leave only for a certain amount of hours a week for work only.
One of our businesses is across the street from a federal building which includes probation officers. I have heard it all many times. She also gets to pee in a cup without prior notice.
I can also guarantee you that she didn't sleep too sound in "camp cupcake" and most of the women hated her guts.
Martha Stewart is a phony. She pretends that all of "her recipes" and "her ideas" were thought up by her. Most of them were STOLEN from others. She markets herself well with the help of a willing press.
She had her moment in the sun, but it was her stinginess with so little money for her that costs all this trouble for her.
This whole thing for her was so avoidable and stupid, but maybe the same thing that inspired her to crime is of the same stuff that made her a success.
I agree with you that most at that camp hated her guts, because when they leave, most don't have several hundred million to live lavishly off of like her.
She earned what she got, she earned both her success and her conviction.
You make excellent points on the real need for regulation in the investment and banking world.
Who said that? Not me!
Get some sleep, you're saying things that are foolish and totally wrong. Get some sleep.
You apparently hate spacing when you type too.
;-)
Joe Kennedy and his friends,damned near brought down ALL of Wall Street and this nations, after the Crash of '29,while the street was recovering.And that's just one reason the SEC was begun.
Anyone who doesn't want any regulations/laws at all,should be looked at as suspect and/or a complete moron.
I'd explain further,but it's late and I've typed much of far too many times before,for me to do it again.
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