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
Well, I must comment in jest. Martha has lots of fans. She won't go under.
Meanwhile Klintonoid Franklin Delano Raines completely hoses Fannie Mae's books, jeoprodizes the entire US financial system and walks away with nearly a quarter billion dollars in compensation.
Her conviction should be overturned, anyway. Andrea Yates' conviction was overturned by a much less relevant lie on the stand. An FBI agent lied on the stand in her case.
Martha is a potential conservative, if She wants to wake up. The Lady is smart, but, confused.
There is MarthaTalks.com there is FryMartha.com and finally SaveMartha.com.
I really have mixed feelings that she is getting a rock star welcome. While her crime was more of well white collar crime, she is not a murderer, she lied to the feds but still after someone's serves it seems unseemly of her departure from prison.
I suppose if I am up at midnight I might take a gander at MSNBC Dan Abrams will be live with the coverage. But I will bet that CNN and FOX will do the same.
Finally, I get to remove that "FREE MARTHA" bumper sticker off of the SUV!
I actually think that Martha should be welcomed back to society, as should all people who have served their time. This may sound wierd, but I think that if society decides that XX years in prision is the correct punishment for a crime, then once a convict has served that term, it is incumbent upon society to recognize that the convict has paid the price and they should be allowed to return to society and, hopefully, become a contributing member of society. I think one of the big reasons that people become career criminals is that when they are released from prison, no one will hire them for a job, their friends and families shun them, etc. (Certainly there are some who make a life of crime no matter how people treat them, and they should be punished accordinly). If society thinks a crime deserves a tougher punishment, sentence them to such a punishment. But once a person has served the sentence society imposed on that person, the person should not be stigmatized for the rest of their life. A kid who does something wrong and gets grounded for a week doesn't get vilified and stigmatized by their parents once they've served their punishment (at least I hope not). Similarly, we should give people who have served their time a fresh start or at the very leaset the benefit of the doubt.
This is a natural result of the ever expansion of laws in the US. If we continue to make felons for things that the public in general public don't consider terrible, lying to the FBI that is lying to you, smoking dope, using your own land etc., then the public naturally will not stigmatize felons any more.
I just knew Martha would make lemonade out of those lemons.
The best revenge is to live WELL.
What's your point? She's a clintonista. How many of them turn toward the light?
I don't know of any.
It is a felony for two 15 year olds to have sex. We know they do!
As a convicted felon has she lost her right to vote?
Then by all means, welcome her...after the ankle bracelet comes off.
We "know they do" what?
We don't know any such thing.
I have been a fan of Martha's for many many years. I have learned so much from her TV shows and magazines. In a world full of bad news all the time, her shows were like an island of sanity for me. Everything was perfect as it should be, "it's a good thing". I left my Martha Christmas tree up this year until she is released.
I truly think she got a bum deal simply because of her popularity.
I think the rules on her release are somewhat stupid as was her sentence to begin with. She can visit the horses in the barn on her property but not plant a garden. (do they think she will bury stock tips out there?) She can go to the grocery store, church and work but may not carry a gun. I doubt that Martha ever carried a gun anyway.
She will emerge from this even better than ever, just wait. I only wish I had bought her stock last year when I wanted to. Darn!!
Their parents are liberals. What do you expect? But they do, and they are.
Not if HIllary has her way.
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