TV personality Martha Stewart and her stockbroker, Peter E. Bacanovic, were sentenced to five months in prison and five months of house arrest after a New York jury found them guilty of preemptively selling almost 4,000 of Stewart's shares of ImClone Systems stock. The sale was made after Stewart was tipped off about ImClone's failure to receive FDA approval for its new colorectal cancer treatment. (Incidentally, the cancer drug did later receive FDA approval around the same time Stewart was on trial.)
Stewart managed to avoid the heftiest charge of securities fraud after the Manhattan District Court Judge Miriam Cedarbaum ruled that a jury could not prove Stewart's guilt "without resorting to speculation and surmise," per The New York Times. If Stewart had been found guilty of this charge, she would have faced up to ten years in federal prison. Comparatively speaking, five months at a minimum-security facility and five months "stuck" at her sprawling upstate New York estate seemed easy — and Stewart's initial thoughts on settling into prison reflected that.
"The camp is fine; it is pretty much what I anticipated," Stewart said in a statement published to her Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia website after she was booked in Alderson (via People). "The best news — everyone is nice — both the officials and my fellow inmates. I have adjusted and am very busy. The camp is like an old-fashioned college campus — without the freedom, of course."
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