I'll trade places with you any day of the week Martha.
Posted on 07/05/2005 10:23:45 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK (AP) - Martha Stewart says in a new interview that her nickname in prison was M. Diddy, that house arrest is "hideous" and that her prosecution was about bringing her down "to scare other people."
In the interview, Stewart tells Vanity Fair magazine she agrees with those who say her crime - lying about a personal stock sale - is far different from massive corporate scandals such as Enron, WorldCom and Tyco.
"Of course that is what it's all about," Vanity Fair quotes Stewart as saying. "Bring 'em down a notch, to scare other people. If Martha can be sent to jail, think hard before you sell that stock."
Stewart, 63, is serving a five-month term of house arrest at her Bedford, N.Y., estate that followed five months in a West Virginia federal prison. She is scheduled to go free early next month.
"I hate lockdown. It's hideous," Stewart tells the August issue of the magazine, on newsstands July 12.
Asked about the electronic monitoring device she must wear on her ankle - she has complained repeatedly that it irritates her skin - Stewart says she knows how to remove it.
"I watched them put it on. You can figure out how to get it off," she is quoted as saying. "It's on the Internet. I looked it up."
Her publicist's eyes "widened with alarm" when Stewart made the remark. The article didn't say whether Stewart claimed ever to have taken off the device.
Still, Stewart appears to take house arrest very seriously, noting that she once phoned her probation officer to apologize when she arrived home two or three minutes late from an approved outing.
Stewart has two TV shows planned for the fall season - a one-hour daytime talk show "Martha" and a version of the NBC reality show "The Apprentice."
She says her version of "The Apprentice" will be different than Donald Trump's and that she doesn't want to be portrayed as mean and harsh. She says she would never use Trump's catchphrase, "You're fired."
"We are trying to come up with other ways to say it," she says. "For instance, if someone is from Idaho, I could say, 'You're back in Boise for apple-picking time.'"
A federal appeals court is considering Stewart's bid to overturn her conviction on charges that she lied about her sale of 3,928 shares of ImClone Systems stock in late 2001.
Asked whether she owes anyone an apology, Stewart says she is sorry for the "chaos" her prosecution caused but suggests she is not personally to blame.
"You can't be sorry for something that - let's see, how can I say this? I'm on appeal. You don't appeal if you think that you should be sorry," she says.
The magazine reports Stewart is in good spirits and hard at work renovating her Bedford home. She is allowed to leave Bedford 48 hours per week for work outings.
She even laughs at a joke made by Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" - that she could make a shiv, or small blade, out of a lamb shank.
"He was talking about me after I left, and - I have to say - Jon Stewart is even better looking in person than he is on TV," Stewart says. "I have such a crush on him."
She didn't lie on a witness stand. Are you familiar at all with the case?
Absolutely that was their intention. Not to mention you can make a name for yourself as a politically ambitious prosecutor (and face it what prosoector's aren't politically ambitious?)
Instant name recognition when he decide's to run. "Oh! he's the guy who took Martha Stewart down"
She could have taken the fifth amendment or simply told the truth but she chose to lie.
She would love people to think it was about selling stock.
While you should always obey the law it has become time to re-examine "insider trading laws" and laws in general to see how the government is attempting to micromanage our lives, like with the "Bank Secrecy Act" where you cannot loan a friend in need anything over $10,000 without the bank reporting your "suspicious" action to the feds.
O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake never went to prison whereas Martha Stewart did. I think her prosecution was a big waste of time.
In her mind Martha is a victim, a martyr, why disillusion her with facts. Her kind never liked facts.
Is that anything like, "Think hard before you make ridiculous remarks"?
Martha never lied on the witness stand.
She merely lied in an interview(s), not under oath, not in a courtroom.
So the feds, knowing they couldn't make a case against her for insider trading, decided to charge her with lying to them.
BUZZZZ... times up Martha.. you're irrelevant.. and arrogant..
As much in the past as I have had disdain for Martha Stewart, I don't see where she did anything all that wrong.
She never lied on the witness stand. (Like Clinton did.) That would have been perjury. She was never charged with perjury. She was charged with lying to a Federal Official. Not under oath or in a deposition or such. All you have to do to be charged with a Federal Felony is say something to a Fed that isn't true. Look up 18 USC 1001.
Bzzzzzzzzzzt! Wrong answer but thanks for playing Martha!
You have learned nothing from all of this. It is all about when the LEO's (Law Enforcement Officers) come you say nothing and lawyer up. Had you done that, the worst that could have happened was that you might have had to disgorge (pay the government) the money you made on the transaction.
Not only that but you're double stupid as, having been an officer of a company that went public, I know that this was explained to you in detail by the underwriters lawyers when you went public.
The absolutely ridiculous thing about that law is that the Feds can lie to you when they ask the questions. They allegedly did this to Martha. At least the playing field should be leveled and lying should be allowed if the Feds do it first.
She did not lie under oath. She was convicted of lieing to some federal investigators about an act which was not itself a crime (she was not an "insider" so could not be guilty of insider trading).
This was a travesty and Stewart is exactly right that it is all about putting fear in the hearts of the subjects.
Never, ever talk to investigators especially federal. They are not your friends. No matter whether you are innocent or guilty. At one time it could be considered a civil duty to cooperate with the authorities. No more.
Dear garyhope,
"She seems to have forgotten about arrogance, hubris and insider trading."
As others have pointed out, she wasn't prosecuted for insider trading.
Arrogance and hubris, although not to be cultivated, are not federal crimes.
sitetest
She was convicted of lying to investigators about a crime for which she couldn't be prosecuted.
Martha is the modern Leona Helmsley. She got caught up in her own little web of funny monies, stock trading on the QT from a "family friend", etc. Is it my fault that the dummy got caught trying to cover her ample a$$ with little "stretches of imagination" a.k.a. LIES, and had to spend time in the slammer and then in her really quaint cottage? I say, you slept with the dogs Martha, and you got the fleas from it. Deal with it and STFU! She definitely ain't the brightest bulb in that candelabra, is she?
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