Martha Stewart: 'I'll be back'

Choking back tears and pleading for leniency, celebrity homemaker Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison for lying about a stock sale -and vowed: "I'll be back.".

But the woman who saw her gracious homemaking empire crippled over a single transaction smiled boldly into the cameras yesterday to denounce her treatment, pitch her company and vow: “I’ll be back.”

Stewart, who was also ordered to spend five months confined to her home and fined $30,000 (€24,000), was allowed to remain free pending appeal. The sentence was the minimum possible under federal guidelines.

Peter Bacanovic, the high-powered stockbroker who was convicted along with Stewart of lying about her stock sale in December 2001, received the same sentence of five months in prison and five months home confinement.

While Stewart did not admit guilt in court – a move that could have jeopardised her appeal – she took pains to tell US District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum she was sorry that others had been hurt by the scandal.

“What was a small personal matter became over the last two-and a half years an almost fatal circus event of unprecedented proportions spreading like oil over a vast landscape, even around the world,” Stewart said.

Cedarbaum accepted a defence request to recommend to federal prison officials that Stewart serve her time at a minimum-security centre in Danbury, Connecticut, close to her home in Westport.

“I believe that you have suffered, and will continue to suffer, enough,” the judge said.

Cedarbaum allowed Stewart to postpone the sentence while her lawyers appeal against her conviction – a process that could take months, and one that legal experts have called an uphill battle.

Just before she was sentenced, Stewart – who during her trial spoke only to declare her innocence – rose from her seat and, her voice breaking almost to the point of sobs, told the judge she feared her life would be “completely destroyed”.

Then, in an extraordinary change of demeanour, Stewart walked down the courthouse steps, approached a microphone and denounced the scandal as full of “such venom and such gore – I mean it’s just terrible”.

Smiling and showing her well-honed comfort with TV cameras, she even suggested fans could “continue to show your support” by subscribing to her magazines and buying her line of homemaking products.

And she vowed: “I’ll be back. I will be back. Whatever I have to do in the next few months, I hope the months go by quickly. I’m used to all kinds of hard work, as you know, and I’m not afraid.”

Investors sent the stock of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia higher by more than 30%.

Stewart resigned as CEO of the company when she was indicted last year and gave up her seat on the board after she was convicted. She remains its leading creative force and holds the title of founding editorial director.

The prison sentence punctuated a chain of events that began on December 27, 2001, when Stewart, in a brief phone call from a Texas tarmac on her way to a Mexican vacation, sold 3,928 shares of ImClone Systems, a biotechnology company run by her long-time friend Sam Waksal.

Prosecutors claimed Bacanovic, now 42, ordered his assistant to tip Stewart that Waksal was trying to sell his shares. ImClone announced negative news the next day that sent the stock plunging. Stewart saved $51,000 (€41,000).

Stewart and Bacanovic always maintained she sold because of a preset plan to unload the stock when it fell to $60 (€48).