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
LOL
Silly goose
(there isn't much I don't "catch on" to, and if you think I haven't here, then YOU are the clueless one, oh ye with the thinnest skin)
Please explain to me how some expert being wrong about the plot of a Law & Order epsiode was relevant to the Andre Yates case.
I hope Stewart does appeal, because it was a bogus charge, an example of trophy-hunting.
The guy used the word "I" when he should have said "we". The test was not in question.
As to Yates. She should be under the prison.
I did not follow the case, and I don't watch Law and Order. I really don't have clue, but I guess nuts is nuts in this case, Nobody seems to be able to argue otherwise. That is all I know about it.
Again, you must admit that there is not much point in re trying it. She would still be nuts.
You don't toss cases because of something that had no effect on the verdict happened.
A case that might get tossed is Petersons, if I ever saw one that qualified. That case was a mess.
I cannot believe this: Larry King Live is going to have a LIVE show at midnight EST, showing Martha leaving JAIL!!!!
The charge was legit, and the reason was that she was a officer with the NY Stock Exchange. She was a trained broker.
She got caught in the net.
Yeah, so is FOX. They are all freezing their butts off waiting for a SUV to drive out with tinted windows.:-)
I cannot believe this: Larry King Live is going to have a LIVE show at midnight EST, showing Martha leaving JAIL!!!!
the reason was that she was a officer with the NY Stock Exchange. She was a trained broker.
She wasn't charged with anything to do with NYSE or securities. She was charged with as statement that her lawyers put out not being completely truthful.
I'm happy you broke your bonds !
Love Life,
F H
PS: Lying is wrong, but would someone please tell me why every politican is not behind bars ?
Think of it as relying on some other type of opinion (international comes to mind as an example) in the outcome of the decision.
She should have.
They were satisfied with what they got. I would gone with the whole enchilada.
She did things to evade prosecution, and you know that she did.
Five months was nothing. And since she is in the marketing business, it has made her rich.
But justice was done. You can defend her till the cows come home, but she is one devious cow. I can imagine the stuff she has not been caught at.
no offence taken pc's are new to me.i come from a time of outdoor john's and spring water. wasen't kidding about second grade ededation.but i read better than i spell,thanks to my youngest son who is a senior this year.i have read this thread for a long time.just never posted.
LKL is showing the first live interview of Martha Stewart after her sentencing. FOFL!
She was on the Board of Governors at the NYSE. She was licensed in a highly regulated industry and certainly knew better. Then she compounded her own problem a hundred-fold by evading the issue in the investigation and lying.
She's a liberal who never thought she'd get caught. I hope she's changed I'll give her what's due for paying her debt to society.
But I expect much better from someone in such a position of authority on the NYSE.
That would make greta evidence in court. I am no fan of hers, but to me the law is not supposed to about who likes or dislikes you. That is why this case annoys me. She was put on trial for her reputation. I still have yet to hear any proof that she did something illegal. And that's what our criminal justice system is supposed to wotk on.
I bet all of these so-called reporters wouldn't be making such a big deal of a Republican FELON getting out of prison. But since the DEM party is the party of FELONS what else can they do?
it is because of her, and people like her that regular folk so often lose their butts in the market.
It is not their personal playground and private bank.
She violated trust. She attempted to tamper with evidence by changing computer records. She lied to the fed.
When they got close she reversed the record tampering, but was left with the BS. They nailed with it.
She was also guilty, but not prosecuted for insider trading. The amounts were just not enough to get attention, but some investor we don't know paid for that, and it was not her.
These types of white collar crimes usually go undetected and under prosecuted, but I am glad they made a example of her.
As the Brits say, "Not to worry."
At one time or another, the PC has been new to all of us. We just plug along learning as we go. My congratulations to your spunk. Keep going.
What the should have done was thrown the book at the CEO.
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