Why did Martha Stewart go to prison? What did she say

Martha Stewart has been known as the queen of home decor, crafts and cooking for decades, and her fan base has recently expanded thanks to her unlikely friendship with Snoop Dogg and her thirst-trapped selfie.

However, in the early 2000s, Stewart made headlines for an entirely different event—an insider trading scandal that landed her in federal prison for five months.

Stewart, 83, has not been shy about talking about her time in prison. in the trailer for her upcoming documentary “Martha”, which will be released on Netflix on October 30th.

“It was so terrible for me that I had to go through that, to be a trophy for these idiots in the U.S. Attorney’s office,” she said. She later said, “These prosecutors should have been put in a Cuisinart and turned on full blast.”

Stewart said she had to “climb herself out of a hole” after being in prison.

There is no doubt that after her release she got down to business. back to my journal“The Life of Martha Stewart” and the launch of “The Martha Stewart Show” and “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart” in 2005.

Over the past two decades, she has worked on a dizzying number of projects.

She has produced several cookbooks and television shows, including VH1’s “Dinner with Martha and Snoop” and HGTV’s “Martha Knows Best.” She has been involved in many entrepreneurial ventures, including launching a line of products at Macy’s and, most recently, introducing her own brand of CBD wellness gummies. She recently said on TODAY with Hoda and Jenna. that her hundredth book will be an autobiography.

In the documentary, Stewart said she was grateful that her life did not follow a normal path.

“Cookie cutter houses and cookie cutter life are not for me,” she said in the trailer.

“I might just be a miserable former housewife,” she also said. “But I didn’t let that happen to me, and I’m so happy I didn’t.”

Keep reading to learn more about one chapter of Stewart’s life, her time in prison following an insider trading scandal.

Why did Martha Stewart go to prison?

In June 2003, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against Stewart and her broker Peter Bacanovic.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged that Stewart engaged in illegal insider trading two years earlier when she sold all of her shares in the biopharmaceutical company ImClone.

According to the complaint, Bacanovic warned Stewart when ImClone CEO Sam Waksal and his daughter Aliza Waksal placed an order to sell their ImClone shares, a sign that the company’s stock price was about to fall. According to the SEC complaint, the Waksals’ decision to sell shares was not public information.

By calling Stewart to inform her of the Waksals’ sale, Bacanovic violated his employer Merrill Lynch’s insider trading policy and the Insider Trading and Securities Fraud Act of 1988, according to the SEC complaint.

Acting on this information, Stewart sold all of her nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone stock and avoided a loss of about $45,000 in the process, according to the SEC.

The complaint also alleged that Stewart and Bacanovic lied to authorities “on multiple occasions” about what they did and tried to cover up their illegal actions.

“Stewart lied when she stated that she did not remember Bacanovic telling her that any of the Waksals were selling their shares in ImClone, and Bacanovic lied when she stated that she did not tell Stewart that Waksal was selling his shares in ImClone,” the statement said. complaint.

According to the SEC, Stewart tampered with evidence by editing the contents of an incriminating message regarding her insider trading of ImClone.

Stewart and Bacanovic have pleaded not guilty.

After a six-week trial in March 2004, Stewart was found guilty of four counts of conspiracy, obstruction and two counts of making false statements, according to Associated Press.

That September, she was sentenced to five months at Camp Alderson Federal Prison, a minimum-security women’s prison in West Virginia that housed about 1,000 inmates at the time, according to a prison release. Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Bacanovic was also found guilty of these four counts, as well as a charge of making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He was also sentenced to five months in prison.

Stewart reported to prison in October 2004 and was released in March 2005. She then spent two years on supervised release, five months of which were spent in home confinement, according to a prison release. Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Under the terms of her home confinement, Stewart was allowed to leave her Westchester County home 48 hours a week for work purposes. NBC News. She was also required to wear an ankle bracelet.

In April 2005, a judge rejected Stewart’s request to end her five-month house arrest early or increase the time she was allowed to leave the house for work to 80 hours a week.

“Home detention is used as an alternative to imprisonment. It is intended to restrict liberty,” Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum wrote, according to the release. Associated Press. “I see no reason to change the sentence.

Stewart and Bacanovic later filed an appeal to have their convictions overturned, but in January 2006, a federal appeals court upheld their convictions, according to NBC News.

What did Stewart say about her time in prison? Stewart spoke about her time behind bars in interview 2017 on Katie Couric’s podcast, calling being in prison a “very, very terrible thing.”

“It was horrific, and no one — no one — should have to go through that kind of humiliation, really, except for murderers and a few other categories,” Stewart told the former TODAY host.

“That lemonade can be made into lemons? Does what hurts you make you stronger? No. None of these proverbs apply at all. It’s a terrible experience,” she continued.

That doesn’t mean Stewart has erased all traces of her time in prison. She once said that she retained memories of her imprisonment: a poncho crocheted for her by her cellmate.

She wore a poncho the day she was released from prison, and she later showed off a crocheted piece on her first day on the job at Martha Stewart Living in 2005.

“My friend, a wonderful woman, made this,” she said, showing her staff the poncho, according to the report New York Times. “The yarn came from the store. On the eve of my departure, she handed me this – not wrapped, because there was no wrapping paper – and said: “Wear this for your health.”

Stewart told People in 2020, she still has the poncho in her attic.

The lifestyle guru also acknowledged her time in prison with a tongue-in-cheek 2021 product launch. Tik Tok videoShe said she was selling a replica of a nativity scene she created in a pottery class while “at camp.”

“If you’re looking to give a really lovely and special gift this Christmas with a little street cred, these are all inspired by – guess what – a set I made while in lockdown,” she said in the video.

For added authenticity, she noted that the Christmas decorations had her cellmate’s number at the bottom.