By Rochelle Steinhaus Court TV
NEW YORK Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months behind bars and five months house arrest Friday, but won't be trading in her designer clothes for prison garb any time soon. Judge Miriam Cedarbaum granted Stewart's request for a stay until her appeal is decided. "Today is a shameful day," Stewart said with a trembling voice as she addressed the court prior to sentencing on four federal crimes, which stemmed from a Dec. 27, 2001, stock sale in biotech firm ImClone. Though she was not charged with insider trading, Stewart was convicted in March of lying to investigators and conspiring with her stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, to cover up the circumstances surrounding the stock trade during the federal probe that followed.
In her brief remarks before the court, Stewart asked Cedarbaum to remember "all the good I have done" and the "intense suffering" she has experienced. "I seek to repair the damage brought by this," Stewart said. As part of her sentence, Stewart would also be under house arrest for five months following her release from a correctional facility yet to be determined. During that period, she would be required maintain a phone line where authorities could check on her and wear an electronic monitoring device. Stewart will be allowed to leave her Bedford, N.Y., home for work or shopping for necessities, but cannot be out of her house for more than 48 hours a week. In addition, she was given two years probation and ordered to pay a $30,000 fine. Stewart's sentence falls within federal sentencing guidelines. Cedarbaum shot down a motion by the defense for a downward departure that would have enabled a probation sentence instead. Bacanovic, sentenced later in the afternoon, received the same sentence except the amount of the fine, which for him was $4,000. Cedarbaum could have meted out a tougher sentence, but said she was compelled by several factors in Stewart's favor to go lightly, including the home-style maven's clean criminal record and 1,500 letters of support she received. "It is apparent you have helped many people outside your own family," the judge said. "I believe you have suffered and will continue to suffer enough. Cedarbaum refused to allow Stewart to serve out her prison term in a halfway house instead of a federal correctional facility, but did agree to a request to recommend she be sent to Danbury Federal Correctional Institution. Ultimately, the government's Bureau of Prisons, not the judge, determines where Stewart will be assigned to serve out her sentence. Outside the courthouse, fans held signs and chanted "Save Martha!" "I'll be back," Stewart vowed in a brief statement outside the courthouse. "I'm used to all kinds of hard work, as you know, and I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid whatsoever. "I'm just very, very sorry that it's come to this, that a small personal matter has been able to be blown out of all proportion and with such venom and such gore. It's just terrible," she said. She urged her fans to show their support by continuing to buy her company's products and subscribing to the magazine that bears her name. Following news of the sentencing, the price of stock in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia shot up 30 percent. The lawyer handling her appeal, Walter Dellinger, said there are "at least five issues" that the defense will base its appeal upon, including perjury allegations against a juror and a government witness currently facing criminal charges for lying on the stand. Stewart's trial lawyer, Robert Morvillo, praised Stewart at the sentencing and asked the judge to spare his client from a prison sentence. "Is the denial of conduct so serious that it warrant's society most serious penalty, the deprivation of freedom?" Morvillo said. He also cited the economic impact the case has had not only on Stewart but employees who were laid off because of cutbacks following the scandal. In her public remarks after the hearing, Stewart apologized to the 200 workers who lost their jobs. Morvillo cited the landmark antitrust case of Daniel Milikowsky, the head of several steel companies who was sentenced to house arrest, probation and community service instead of prison because of the hardship his incarceration would impose on his employees. "There is no question incarceration will make things worse," Morvillo told the judge. But Cedarbaum rejected that argument in sentencing Stewart echoing the sentiments of prosecutor Karen Patton Seymour that lying to investigators is a serious crime. Seymour had asked Cedarbaum that the sentence "reflect the even-handedness of the justic system." "It does not matter whether Martha Stewart is a powerful, wealthy woman or a destitute unknown," she said. But Morvillo offered some insight into Stewart's public persona. "She strives to offer the best, the absolute best in everything she does and she gets ridiculed for it because people think she's perfect," he said. "She knows she's not perfect." |