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Martha Stewart Sentenced to Five Months

By Jeralyn, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Fri Jul 16, 2004 at 08:12:23 AM EST
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Update: The transcript of our Washington Post live online chat today on Martha's sentencing is available here.

Bump and Update: Martha gets 5 months in federal custody, five months of home detention. The Judge recommended she serve her time at the federal prison camp in Danbury, CT. She is not contrite. The news is reporting she received a stay pending appeal, but since her lawyers haven't yet filed the Notice of Appeal (they have ten days to do so) we're wondering if the news is confusing release pending appeal with an order for a stay pending a voluntary surrender. We'll keep checking.

What do you think? Did she get off too light or was this a trophy conviction for the Government? In our view, it's the latter.

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Original Post 12:10 a.m.

At 10 am this morning, Martha Stewart learns her fate. We'll be doing the live chat for the Washington Post on the sentencing at 1:00 pm ET. Please join in.

It's expected the Judge will give Martha between 10 and 16 months. We've heard a lot of so-called experts on tv tonight, mostly former prosecutors who are still pro-prosecution, giving a lot of different scenarios. One former prosecutor gleefully said she's going to a federal penitentiary and she's going tomorrow.

Let's be real. If her guideline range is between 10 and 16 months (Zone C of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines,) the minimum term may be satisfied by --

  • (1) a sentence of imprisonment; or
  • (2) a sentence of imprisonment that includes a term of supervised release with a condition that substitutes community confinement* or home detention (pdf) according to the schedule in subsection (e), provided that at least one-half of the minimum term is satisfied by imprisonment.

So Martha's best case scenario is five months in federal custody, followed by five months of home detention.

It's doubtful she will go in tomorrow. In fact, we'd say the chances of that are next to nil. Unless a defendant is a flight risk or a danger to the community, they are usally given a date about three to four weeks after the sentencing on which to surrender to the designated facility. The Bureau of Prisons will use that time to decide where she does her time, taking into account any recommendation of the sentencing judge and where the defendant lives. In all likelihood, Martha will go to the federal prison camp at Danbury. If BOP gives her the Lea Fastow treatment, she could be ordered to a federal detention center in Brooklyn--or even MCC New York. We say that's doubtful since she lives in Connecticut and BOP does try to sentence people near their homes. Of course, available bed space is a concern. If the CT facility is full, she could end up in Alderson in West, VA--a pretty crummy place, even though it's considered a "camp." Leona didn't like it there one bit. But even Alderson probably is better than MDC Brooklyn or MCC New York.

Her lawyers will also file for an appeal bond. Most likely that won't be heard tomorrow --particularly if she is granted a voluntary surrender.

We can't predict the sentence. We will predict Martha will be sleeping in her own bed tomorrow night and a new flurry of motions will follow. And that it will be three weeks or more before anyone, including Martha, knows where she'll do her time.

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