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
All above -- crimes before the SEC "watchdogs" before the securirty regulations.
Did the damn SEC and the damnable regulations stop one iota of loss in 2000? Millions of folks lost billions in total -- the damn regulators still collect their pensions and kept their sinecures. False watchdogs. Last week -- my money was returning 1000% in Vancouver. The free market. Or freer. At least.
But you approve of the same sort of things being done by brokers and traders and Sam W. and Martha S.! SO,WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING?
Wasn't the same at all. Although Ira (was that his name?) is a fraud.
You don't want any regulations or regulators,but are having fits about what YOU see as crimes.You can't have it both ways!
And what you and the general public don't know,is that the SEC has cracked down on lots of people,through the years. You only hear about a wee bit of it all,when someone "famous" goes down.
Outside of the small financial/exchange community in Chicago, Tyson and the Clintons in Arkansas,NOBODY in the general populace knew about the Red Bone.And even when his name popped up in connection with Hillary,it was I,and I alone,who was explaining what he had done and when.
But according to YOU,what he did should be perfectly okay.And you still haven't talked about that case,but just keep throwing up irrelevant straw men.
Is it that as long as YOU make money on an investment,you don't give a damn and/or you think that you could make more money by now ILLEGAL methods?
ANSWER MY QUESTIONS!
Wow.
Just wow.
I am continually amazed at the lengths certain Freepers will go to, to prove points.
What started out as a very innocent joke on my part, has invoked some very serious feelings on yours.
You are now solicited the attention of the moderators on this site.
May I suggest, perhaps, that you have taken this far beyond what I had meant?
Let me help you understand.
Free Republic, for me, is a past time. Something fun of which to partake, when I have the time.
To subscribe to the level that you have, one would think that there are serious voids taking place.
Again, I repeat- I beseech- with a smile/smirk on my face.... drop it!
MEOW
Well,since you call yourself catty,what can I say? Care to expose your other failings? LOL
You have a comprehension problem, I'm not calling myself catty.
Reference your previous posts to me- I believe the Moderators were mentioned- am I incorrect?
Why are you attacking me?
Honestly- what is wrong with you?
What is wrong with you?
Lame. THe best you could come up with is newbie!
Old FReepers- sigh. Not what they wish they could be. If only sign-on date had the equivalent power as viagra.
PS- putting a smiley face or a winkie face at the end of your posts doesn't make you any more likable.
I don't care if you have been a member of this board since Jesus was a twinkle in the eye of the Lord, I still think you're full of it. ;)
Wake up... she dd nothing at all wrong, not even insider trading. She just followed her broker's assistant's advice and was a bit sloppy with the follow up. WHO CARES ABOUT A BIT OF FIBBING TO THE FIBBIES?
Martha rocks.
With her newfound notoriety and with Camp Cupcake behind her, she is poised to roll. I would bet that the next decade will see Martha Stewart go on from strength to strength.
God bless you Martha. May you mount up with wings as eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint... A LITTLE BLESSING STRAIGHT FROM ISAIAH TO YOU!
Ha,
it's been fun- glad I could teach you something.
Best wishes!
Obviously,you're a big fan of hers and for you,she can do no wrong.That's what the Dems' attitude was about Clinton.
She is poised to always be remembered as a convicted felon and unless there are enough of her faithful left,she'll never do what you imagine for her and even then,it's rather doubtful.
But Martha was not convicted or even accused of "insider trading".
She was convicted of simply lying to Federal investigators. Period. That's it.
I completely agree with you.
It's a shame that you are incapable of understanding what your posts said about you.
Honestly, please help me understand.
What did my posts say about me?
I would sincerely like to know.
And it wasn't "simple lying" at all;she was convicted of lying,perjury,tampering with evidence and conspiracy.
ROTFLOL...no you don't. You just want attention and/or a flame war,which I am not going to engage in.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.