(CNN) Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison and fined $30,000 Friday for lying to investigators about her sale of ImClone Systems stock in late 2001. Federal Judge Miriam Cedarbaum also ordered that Stewart get five months of home confinement and two years of supervised probation after she is released. It was the minimum sentence the judge could impose under federal sentencing guidelines. But Stewart will not be headed to prison anytime soon. The judge issued a stay delaying the sentence while Stewart's lawyers file an expected appeal. Stewart's attorneys said they won't file a formal appeal Friday. They have 10 days to file their motion for an appeal.
Robert Morvillo, Stewart's lead attorney, asked that if Stewart eventually does go to prison, she be sent to a federal facility in Danbury, Conn. Judge Cedarbaum said she would refer the matter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Shortly after the 30-minute hearing ended, Stewart appeared before television cameras outside the courthouse and said it was a "shameful day." "What was a small personal matter became, over the last two years, an almost fatal circus of unprecedented proportion," said Stewart, who has aggressively fought to clear her name through the 2 1/2-year prosecution. "I have been choked and almost suffocated to death." She also appealed to people to subscribe to her magazine and buy her products. Wearing a black pant suit and escorted by her son-in-law, the lifestyle diva had arrived at the federal courthouse in New York around 9:15 a.m. ET. Stewart and former Merrill Lynch broker Peter Bacanovic were convicted March 5 of obstructing justice, conspiracy and making false statements related to Stewart's suspicious sale of ImClone Systems stock in late 2001. Legal experts were split before the sentencing on how hard Cedarbaum would come down, but most agreed that the sentence would call for some jail time. "The judge probably felt that, given the loss of status and the impact on her business, that this punishment was fair and just," Stanley Twardy Jr., a former U.S. attorney for Connecticut, told CNN/Money after the hearing. |