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Waiting for Stewart: home detention, salary

By Times Staff Writer
Published February 28, 2005

So nice to be home.

After five months in prison in West Virginia, Martha Stewart will be released Sunday to her 153-acre estate in the rolling horse country 40 miles north of midtown Manhattan. There, for five months, she will serve the home detention portion of her sentence for a stock scandal.

She will be able to return to work and start drawing her $900,000 salary again, and she will be free to throw lavish house parties - as long as she doesn't invite any criminals. (Felons are not allowed to consort with other felons.)

Stewart, 63, also will be wearing her newest accessory: an electronic anklet that will allow authorities to monitor her movements.

The woman behind a billion-dollar homemaking empire will be confined to one of several houses on her estate in Katonah, N.Y., except for 48 hours a week for "gainful employment," said Chris Stanton, chief U.S. probation officer in New York. She has other homes in Connecticut, Maine and the Hamptons, but chose the Katonah estate, which she bought in 2000 for $16-million, to be her prison away from prison until August.

Probation authorities will use the anklet and random phone calls to enforce the ban on going outside during nonworking hours.

As for employment, besides running Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and writing a column for her magazine, Stewart can prepare for the two TV shows she will be starring in - a revival of her daily homemaking show and her own version of The Apprentice. Her contract with her company says that her salary, which was suspended while she was behind bars, will be reinstated during home detention.

[Last modified February 26, 2005, 21:56:02]