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
Let's just say by the time she left town, she had several of the ladies on the committee saying: "Well, bless her heart" which when said in certain tones is the equivalent of FOAD.
Actually, she and Hillary are a L
That's not what I was referring to. I guess we'll see. Shell be all over the place........from home. ;-)
Why do the papers and magazines and T.V. just regurgitate back her P.R. handouts? Damned if I know,but don't forget that she's an FOB and a big Clintonista.
should have read..."actually,she and Hillary are a LOT alike."
Actually, I would have thought they were twins seperated at birth. Nasty pieces of work both of them.
Close,but Martha IS older and comes from a much lower rung on the social ladder,than did Hillary. Otherwise,the two are very, very,VERY similar. Oh,and Hillary was a better mother and as we all know,she wasn't very good at that;but Martha was far worse.
I've never claimed to be any good at typing. What I AM very good at,is posting facts.
What a great country this is!
A few good results of Martha's imprisonment.
1. AS A CONVICTED FELON SHE CANNOT VOTE
2. AS A CONVICTED FIREARM SHE CANNOT OWN A FIREARM
"What's your point? She's a clintonista. How many of them turn toward the light?
I don't know of any."
She maybe a Clintonista to the care, but this convicted felon cannot vote. One less vote for Hitlery.
I'm a better cook that she is,I was making artsy-fartsy creative things long before she ever thought about doing any of that,I've known things that it took her decades to find out and/or have others write for her/make for her that she puts her name to -- congrats.
It just makes my skin crawl when here drooling sycophants,who haven't bothered to learn any real facts about her,post fairy-tales and lies about her. -- you have this way of calling people names ("her drooling sycophants") in an indirect way. Not a very attractive trait. And, if you are trying to say that I am a sycophant of hers, you are very wrong.
Earlier on a post to me you proclaimed that I learned all I knew about plants from Martha for my nursery. I never used a thing she ever said or wrote on the matter. I've never read an article she ever was to have written! You just jumped to silly, emotional conclusions. When anyone (on this thread) has one thing positive to say about the woman you react with great anger. You want to cast them as "morons" and "drooling sycophants". I say you have a real problem when this woman's name is mentioned, and it looks like it goes much deeper than your distaste for her financial dealings and her sometimes nasty personality. How is that for a conclusion?
Hmmmmm. Time for some shut eye. ;-)
No, and Al Capone was a saint, right, and was ONLY guilty of tax evasion like the governent said.
Listen, if you can't see that the information Martha used to see her Imclone stocks was an "insider tip" and only known by a privledged few and NOT the public, then there's no sense in discussing this.
She was not only on the board of the stock exchange and thus knew all the rules and had a duty to follow them to the letter, she also had a broker's license which means she doubly knew the rules and doubly followed them.
To whom much is given, much is expected.
Martha failed on all those points, I'm afraid.
I didn't know that....thanks!
Heard a clip from Rather's appearance last night. In it he says they should have authenticated the memo "and with more time" probably could have.
How much time has he had since last fall? Seems to me he's had plenty of time to "authenticate" it.....
Talk about obsfucation.......
She was a big time supporter of the DUms, nothing more need to be said. The media is treating her as tho she was a gift to humanity and rewarding her as such.
I don't think Martha should have gotten prison time. Politics aside, I do think she has done a great deal for American style and has brought back homekeeping traditions. I've always admired her.
I will say that when I found out she was a Democrat, my enthusiasm waned a bit. But I always like a comeback story.
Martha obstructed justice by lying to the SEC and federal investigators. After getting insider information from her stockbroker, she ordered her secretary to delete all computer records that she had even spoken with that stockbroker on that particular day.
When the secretary balked, Martha deleted the computer records herself, and then quickly changed her mind upon realizing her secretary was staring at her with that "don't get me involved in this" type of contempt.
As a stockbroker and member of the Stock Exchange, Martha knew precisely the rules about using insider information to make stock trades, yet she still was so greedy she couldn't stop herself.
To people who say, "yeah she didn't hurt anybody but herself," you could say the same thing about Michael Milken, or Ivan Boesky or any other stock manipulator.
Maybe the feds couldn't prove insider trading, but just as they did with Al Capone on tax evasion, they charged Martha with what they could considering that all the people involved in her little scheme had ample time to hide and destroy their greedy trail.
By the way, I love rich people in general, and am the farthest thing from a class warfare type as you'll ever find.
I just expect them to play by the same rules as everyone else.
I'm not saying she wasn't guilty.
I don't think she should have had to serve PRISON time.
That fellow who wrote a critical book on Martha a few years ago was on Fox this morning....he's a Wall Street insider, and feels Martha's stock is a bubble that will pop. He didn't seem to think her prison stay had humbled her or made her a 'better' person, or that her prison mates would be welcomed to her home/homes anytime soon. Also that the publisher of her magazine has walked.
That was the negative stuff. Others think she'll be bigger and better than ever, plus she'll be back employing all those wonderfully talented people. Her Everyday Food magazine is going great guns in the meantime, and I think that's already a tv show. Her catalog has always been full of great stuff at affordable prices. I especially love her gardening tips/tv show episodes. Wonder why they won't let her plant a garden? Sounds dumb.
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