Stewart may consider reporting to prison early
NEW YORK — Martha Stewart’s lawyer won’t say whether she is considering the unusual step of going to prison ahead of her appeal, but says if she did, she would have plenty of good business reasons for doing so.
“Any thought she might give to voluntarily beginning her sentence is based upon her desire to devote her full time to her company as soon as possible,” said Walter Dellinger, who is handling Stewart’s appeal.
Dellinger’s comments came after a report in Friday’s New York Daily News, citing unnamed sources, that she wants to serve her time before her appeal is heard.
Stewart won a stay while appealing her conviction for lying to authorities investigating a stock sale she made in late 2001. Stewart, whose multimedia empire was once valued at $1 billion, was sentenced July 16 to five months in prison and five months of home detention.
Meanwhile, a former brokerage assistant who helped Stewart make her fateful stock trade and later emerged as a key government witness was spared prison and probation Friday and fined just $2,000 for accepting a payoff during the government’s investigation.
U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum imposed the fine against Douglas Faneuil, who faced up to six months in prison.