Martha Stewart Sentenced To Prison

During home confinement, Stewart will be allowed to go to work and other approved activities for up to 48 hours a week. She must spend at least one entire day a week at home. The judge said she would consult with the probation office about Stewart's request that she not be required to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet during home confinement.

At his afternoon hearing, Bacanovic told the judge: "I deeply regret the pain and sorrow this case has caused my family. . . . This has been a horrible ordeal."

Cedarbaum then handed down the same confinement terms but a smaller fine. "Lying to government agencies during the course of an investigation is a very serious matter," the judge said as she sentenced each defendant. "A term of incarceration is justified and appropriate in this case."

Cedarbaum added that she was imposing the minimum guidelines sentence because neither had a prior record and both had done much good for other people.

"The public interest objective in this prosecution has been served by the jury verdict," the judge said. "You have suffered and will continue to suffer enough."

Outside the courthouse, Stewart's appeals lawyer Walter Dellinger, of the District, outlined what he said were five promising avenues for Stewart's appeal.

Among them: the allegation that one juror lied on his jury questionnaire and was biased against Stewart, the recent arrest of a government ink expert on charges he lied during the trial, Cedarbaum's refusal to allow Morvillo to argue that Stewart was not guilty of insider trading and therefore had no reason to obstruct the investigation, and the claim that the jury's verdict was tainted by hearing the evidence connected to a securities fraud count that Cedarbaum dismissed right before closing arguments.

In her recorded Web message, Stewart told supporters "the trial was fundamentally unfair in so many different ways and this will be the basis of my appeal."

Bacanovic will base his appeal on the alleged perjury by the witness and the juror and will likely argue that he should not have been tried alongside Stewart.

The appeal is not the only legal proceeding in Stewart's and Bacanovic's future. The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil insider trading charges against both, alleging that the tip about Waksal violated securities laws. The SEC is seeking monetary damages and for Stewart to be barred from serving as director of a public company and her activities as an officer to be limited.

Stewart's company has been severely wounded by her legal woes. While supporters continue to buy her magazines and retail products, advertisers have deserted her magazines, particularly the flagship Martha Stewart Living, in droves. Stewart, who resigned as chief executive when she was indicted and left the board after her conviction, still owns a controlling interest. The company's shares closed at $11.81, up $3.17, or nearly 37 percent. The company was trading above $19 a share before reports of the investigation leaked to the media.

Friday, the company issued a statement saying Stewart "has our full support. . . . We see this as an important step toward closure."

Legal experts said Stewart was extremely lucky in her sentencing. Since Enron Corp. collapsed in late 2001, many judges have been reluctant to be seen as soft on white-collar criminals and Congress has been inveighing against judges who drop below the minimum recommended sentence. As a result, Stewart's request for probation was always a long shot, they said, and she ran the chance of getting up to 16 months in prison.