Stewart, Martha (1941–)

Martha Stewart was a very popular and influential American celebrity in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a virtual media icon who ran afoul of the law and served prison time. Stewart was born on August 3, 1941, in Jersey City, New Jersey, and when she was 3 years old, her parents, Edward and Martha Kostyra, moved her and her five siblings to Nutley, New Jersey. Because of her legendarily strong work ethics and character, she received a partial scholarship to Barnard College in New York City. To pay the remainder of her tuition, she worked as a model for television commercials and magazines. At Barnard College, she met her husband Andrew Stewart, and they married during her sophomore year in 1961, just before she graduated with a bachelor's degree in European history and architectural history. In 1965, she had her daughter Alexis, and within 2 years she became a stockbroker. When recession hit Wall Street in 1973, Stewart decided to leave the brokerage and move to Westport, Connecticut, with her husband and daughter.

Stewart became a writer and columnist for the magazine House Beautiful, while simultaneously serving in a similar capacity for the New York Times. In 1982, she [Page 2007]coauthored her first book, Entertaining, and shortly thereafter she started publication of her own magazine, Martha Stewart Living. By this time, she was a regular guest on the morning network talk shows, and she even appeared on “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night with David Letterman.” In 1993, she began her own syndicated television program, “Martha Stewart Living,” and she became a well-known and much-loved celebrity, her empire capped by the creation of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. She was the American guru of housekeeping, cooking, gardening, decorating, crafts, and holiday parties.

However, her period of prosperity lasted only about a decade. In 2004, at age 62, Martha Stewart stood trial on charges of conspiracy, obstruction, securities fraud, and lying to investigators in connection with the sale of her stock in ImClone, a biotechnology company. Standing trial alongside Stewart was her former stockbroker, 41-year-old Peter Bacanovic, who faced the same charges in addition to perjury and falsifying documents. Stewart's troubles stemmed from her sale of shares of ImClone on December 27, 2001, one day before the FDA announced it had rejected the application for approval of ImClone's cancer drug, Erbitux—news that caused the company's stock prices to plummet.

It was Stewart's response to the subsequent federal probe that ultimately proved incriminating as prosecutors claimed that she not only conspired with Bacanovic to cover up evidence concerning the sale but also lied publicly about her involvement in the scandal to protect the stock price of her own company, Martha Stewart Omnimedia. Bacanovic claimed he and Stewart sold her ImClone stock after having a “selling conversation” on December 20, 2001, a week before the sale was executed. During that conversation, Bacanovic said he and Stewart reviewed her entire portfolio, not just her shares of ImClone, and agreed to sell her shares in the company if the price sunk to $60.

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