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
Stealing a man's horse -- that's a felony. Rape -- a felony. Robbing a bank -- a felony. Assualt and battery -- a felony. Fraud of over an average month's wage -- a felony.
What Ms. Stewart did? Not even a misdemeanor. A private fine on the floor of the exchange at best.
Just WHY are you a BIG fan of Martha Stewart's? Because she's famous,you've bought into the hype,and/or because you are interested in cooking and artsy fartsy over the top crafty things? If it's only the latter,I can teach you far more than Martha can and it's ALL my own stuff,or recipes from GOOD cooks,whom I would give credit to;unlike Martha and I don't have a phony accent. LOL
Are you a member of any exchange? Have you ever worked on Wall Street (in the generic use of that term) in any capacity? Are you a lawyer,who deals specifically with securities? I bet the answer to all of those questions is a big fat NO.
I'm no fan of securities regulation as practised since the 30's. There's no such thing as an insider. Really.
Go lock yourself up -- since you enable that kind of FELONY with your jealous attitide.
Oh goody....you are against all of the securities regulations put into being since the '30s and don't "think" that there's any such thing as insider trading. ROTFLMSO
There IS such a thing as insider trading! There was and is a great need for a lot of the trading rules/laws.If they weren't in place,unscrupulous men/women/groups could and WOULD ruin this nation's economy and populace.
Should the Enron,Adelphia,and World Com. crooks be allowed to do what they did with impunity? Should Red Bone and others like him,be allowed to pull off scams indiscriminately? How about boiler room operations,many now run by members of the Mafia?
Martha was tried and convicted on perjury,tampering with evidence and a variety of other CRIMES and is about to face charges on insider trading,brought by the SEC.
Go ahead...YOU go break all of the laws that you don't "like" and see what happens to you. When caught,you won't get sent to a jail like camp cupcake;that I can assure you of. :-)
Yep.. Oh -- and John Hancock, too.
All choose to ignore the LAW!
Do you have a sense of humor AT ALL?
Drop it already!! my God!
You don't think our tax money is better spent confining other criminals?
Have you read the terms of her home confinement, what is your opinion?
If you don't think this type of "insider" trading doesn't go on EVERY day by any number of people, then you are sadly mistaken.
You are green with envy over Ms. Martha's success. If you have superior cooking/baking/homekeeping/organizing and marketing skills, I urge you to take the opportunity to start your own OMNIMEDIA.
Let me know, I'd be happy to invest. But for heaven's sake, don't let it get too "artsy fartsy".... geesh.
You better NEVER talk about wanting Slick Willie or any other Dem to be prosecuted. I'll remember,always,that you don't think that laws should ever be enforced. :-)
Let's see...you don't own FR,you aren't a Mod,and keep replying to me,but you're telling me to "drop it"? ROTFLOL
Most laws in free and stable countries should be obeyed. The overwhelming majority. There are, however, always some rare cases of bad laws -- and in some areas fulsome cascades of bad law after bad law. Securities law, CFR, and income tax laws come to mind.
Yes,I've read the terms of her house arrest and heard then ad nauseum on T.V.;it's hard to miss seeing/hearing about it. It's all pretty cut and dried,proforma.
Yes,insider trading goes on and so do all manner of other crimes,which I doubt you even know about. Some people get caught;some don't,but crime hurts the general public...which IS why there are laws against committing them.
I am not envious,in the least,of Martha;neither have I ever been jealous of her. I wouldn't trade my life for hers for anything.And I have less than no desire to start a company like OMNIMEDIA or anything like it.When would I have the time for FR? :-)
You keep ignoring MY questions,so I'll repeat just one of them and ask you to answer it. SHOULD RED BONE HAVE BEEN PUNISHED FOR WHAT HE DID FOR HILLARY AND OTHER AND TO OTHERS ?"
And if you don't know what he was notorious for doing,and I mean HOW he ran the scam,then you shouldn't even be talking about this topic.
And to test your knowledge of another market no-no....what's after the bell trading? And here's a new one for you to answer...what's after the bell trading?
Yes, you should spank him. While he's got his latex on, that is.
If you can't and are unable to explain what those two crimes are and how they're executed and what it does to others,then you just keep proving that you talk about things you don't know about and are incapable of comprehending.
The suspicious (to me) trading in the NYSE stock continues -- even as the company hits rotten cash-flow there's always some investors ready to buy anothe offering! He ends up dead -- suicide by small pistol to the head in bed. She inherits -- the paperwork is clean, all LEGAL.
She becomes wealthy. Moves out of the office and upstream in the world of the filthy rich.
Those golden accounts -- looted to run the stock up. But all meeting full regulatory muster. The CFO -- probably a murder, imo -- but CLEAN.
Who's the felon? Not the Black Widow. (Based on a true story.)
If that woman churned accounts/stole from them, it can be proven,she can be tried and sent to jail.
Thank you proving,yet again,that you know/understand nothing at all about this topic! :-)
All legal. By the letter.
Big help the regulators, eh?
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