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
Her Everyday Food mag is now a show on PBS.
Martha By Mail, her online and print catalogue, is no longer in existence, as of about three weeks ago.
Wonder how her lines at KMart and Sears are doing? i think she has some real quality products that harken back to vintage designs.
I own all 14 years worth of her magazines. I hope they continue to climb in value...the premiere issue from 1991 has sold for upwards of $150 on Ebay!
It would be nice if Martha has changed, learned to be humble, thankful, kind and generous. Five months in the pokey will probably wear off in time, though. She seems to have hurt a good many people along the way, even her family will admit that. That's sad.
Wrong.
Martha Stewart is as mean as a snake. She once called her now ex-husband of 25 years a "f*****g idiot in front of their dinner guests for stacking some firewood incorrectly. She also used her Suburban to pin a neighbor against his mail box. She may be an excellent businesswoman but as a human being she is a loser.
I watched Martha. Haven't watched Dan for who knows how many years. Don't want to break the string now that he's leaving.
WHAT A LESSON FOR OUR CHILDREN.
CRIME PAYS.
THIS IS TRULY SAD.
Well, as Elton John said in his famous song .....http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/1131/eltonjpg.JPG
Go back and read the post,wherein you stated that you own a nursery. The implication,was that you learned a lot from Martha,that helped you in business.
I referred to someone as "moron" /didn't call him one,because he kept calling me/addressing me as "MR. DEMOCRAT". Since that person has been here a very long time,he should know that I am not a man and that I'm no damned Dem.
There are drooling sycophants of all stripes on FR and Martha has her own cadre of same. They pop up on ALL threads about her and for them,she can NO wrong at all. I didn't single anyone out,as belonging to this group;but,if the shoe fits,wear it.
Your conclusion is what Martha's droolers always say,when I post the easily proven facts about her,that I do. No,I don't "hate" her...I thoroughly disapprove of her criminal behaviors,find it more than appalling that people who imagine themselves to be Conservatives have no problem supporting someone like her,who is the antithesis of what we all should approve of,and how very little these same people know about her and the facts of her trial/criminal acts.
And as for your imaginings about me and the workings of my mind/"feelings"....stick to plants;you don't do well with people. :-)
You're welcome. I only post facts and those ARE the facts.
What about bank robbers? Should they not get any jail time either?
Her stock IS a BUBBLE and I said so much earlier on this thread.
She can't garden,because it is part of her work and she is only allowed to work X amount of hours a week as part of her house arrest rules.
I was heartened to see that Ms. Beagle-Boy Stewart was at least reduced to the side column on the local paper today, thanks to the Round the World record setting attempt by Fossett... I assume the local editors would have placed her on the front and center if not for Fossett's alleged fuel controversy.
ROTFLOL !
It is sad that the government can legally lie to its citizens but lying to the government is a felony.
That is why I have zero respect for any law enforcement officer, local or federal. They are all liars by allowance of law.
"More time". LOL!
I could say a lot having studied Rather and Rathergate for a long time. I'll just say this:
Dan Rather is NUTS. Dan Rather has gone over the edge.
;-)
You're right - and we've "authenticated" that fact!
Come on, let me have my Martha bias! I've been a huge fan since 1991.
Ok so it's unfair, I admit it.
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