Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Stewart Request to Serve Time at Her Estate

kurty[B] · 07-29-2004, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Martha Stewart's hunker mentality: wait out the appeals process at her estate (below).

Martha Stewart says she's willing to go to jail now on one condition - and it's a doozie.
The domestic diva has offered to begin serving her 10-month sentence at her sprawling home in Bedford, Westchester County, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Stewart is supposed to serve five months in prison and then five months in home confinement.

Switching the order would allow her to watch the leaves change on her 153-acre horse country estate - not exactly what most people would consider hard time.

In fact, Stewart's request is akin to having an after-dinner mint before soup - it just isn't done.

The idea was a compromise that would allow her to appease advertisers who are skittish about her ordeal being prolonged - and would keep her out of prison while her appeal is being considered.

In recent days, Stewart's lawyers reached out to prosecutors with the offer.

It wasn't known if she asked Manhattan Federal Judge Miriam Cedarbaum to approve the plan.

But Stewart's revamped recipe did not go over well with Manhattan federal prosecutors, who are balking at this arrangement, said two sources familiar with the government's thinking.

If Stewart is allowed to undergo her home confinement first, she would be restricted to one of the buildings on her Bedford estate.

Under the terms set down by Cedarbaum, Stewart would be allowed to leave the estate 48 hours per week, but only for work, grocery shopping, religious services and medical appointments.

She would have to eliminate all but one telephone and get rid of call-waiting and call-forwarding services. She also would not be able to go online with her home computer.

But she still would be living far more comfortably than if she were spending time at the women's prison camp in Danbury, Conn., where it's most likely she will end up.

There, she would be up at 6 a.m. every day, working menial jobs five days a week for 12 cents an hour; eating prison food; sharing a TV with her fellow inmates, and in bed with lights out by 10 p.m.

Since Stewart was sentenced July 16, several financial analysts have suggested her magazines would be better served if she got her jail time over with instead of waiting for her appeal to wend its way through the courts.

If the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals acts on her request for a new trial within the five months, she might be able to dodge actual prison time altogether. Stewart filed a notice of appeal the day she was sentenced.

Stewart lawyer Walter Dellinger did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.

On Monday, Dellinger said in a TV interview that Stewart was looking at serving her sentence early to help her magazines and would make up her mind "fairly soon."

"She's willing to think about this because of the company," he said, without mentioning the plan to request home confinement first.

Originally published on July 28, 2004

I've heard of someone who has done this before. Pablo Escobar. Of course, Stewart isn't a cocaine kingpin, and doesn't have people knocked off that get in her way (well, to my knowledge). Does this sound ridiculous to anyone else, or a fair alternative?

EDIT - Fixed Quotes