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UNITED STATES
Martha Stewart gets 5 months jail
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Martha Stewart
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Celebrity homemaker Martha Stewart was sentenced July 16 to five months in prison and five months of house arrest, the lightest term allowed by law, for lying about a stock sale. Her former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, drew the same term for conspiring with her.
U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, who could have given the 62-year-old lifestyle guru 16 months behind bars, recommended a minimum security federal prison in Connecticut, not far from one of Stewart's posh homes, and ordered two years of supervised release and a $30,000 fine.
Stewart remains free on appeal.
Stewart was found guilty in March of conspiracy, making false statements and obstruction -- all stemming from her suspicious sale of stock in biotech company ImClone Systems Inc. on Dec. 27, 2001.
Prosecutors said the sale occurred after Bacanovic ordered an assistant to tip Stewart that ImClone founder Sam Waksal was dumping all his shares, knowing federal regulators were about to give a thumbs down to the company's cancer drug.
The Japan Times Weekly: July 24, 2004 (C) All rights reserved
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