NEW YORK – As Martha Stewart headed into federal court Tuesday and said again that she did not lie to government investigators or defraud her shareholders, Linda Smith of Audubon, N.J., raised her fist in the air and shouted, “You go, girl!”

Smith was one of only two supporters who showed up at the federal courthouse in Manhattan Tuesday morning on the first official day of the trial. But her presence marked what seems to be, anecdotally at least, a groundswell of support for Stewart, whose white-glove housekeeping ideas have more often made her the butt of jokes and a source of resentment.

John Small, the organizer of the rally and of a Web site, www.savemartha.com, had hoped about 100 people would turn out to support Stewart as lawyers began questioning jurors in her case. He blamed the poor attendance on the bitterly cold weather.

But on his site, and at parties and over drinks, people seem to be rallying to Stewart’s defense.

“I think she’s had supporters all over the country all along,” said Ferdinand Gajewski, a Westfield, N.J., resident who has written letters of support for Stewart to newspapers and to Small’s Web site.

Stewart has been charged with obstructing justice during the investigation of whether she sold shares in ImClone Systems Inc. in December 2001 because she knew the company’s chief executive, Sam Waksal, was selling. Stewart sold her shares the day before the Food and Drug Administration disclosed its rejection of an ImClone drug application. Waksal, currently serving a prison sentence on an insider-trading conviction stemming from his ImClone sales, and Stewart are friends.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office also charged Stewart with securities fraud, arguing that she lied about the sale of the ImClone shares to protect the stock price of her own company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, an empire of magazines, household items, and a television show that together have made her the arbiter of good taste in this country.

“The United Kingdom has the queen, and we have Martha Stewart,” said Small, a Manhattan marketing executive who created www.savemartha.com because he believes the government’s case against Stewart is unfair.

Wearing a chef’s hat and an apron that read, “She didn’t do the crime, but she sure can do the thyme,” Small said his site received about 25 million hits since he set it up about 18 months ago. He said he has received no compensation from Stewart or her company, although he does make some money from sales of “Save Martha!” mugs, posters and T-shirts, including ones that read “If the stock sale was legit, you must acquit!”

Small’s crusade has been hit or miss. He said he has sold thousands of “Save Martha!” items, but an effort to raise money for a Times Square billboard bearing the “You must acquit!” slogan garnered only $22,000, not enough to pay for the prominent plea.

Small said he became devoted to Stewart several years ago when he started a wedding Web site. He admired her style.

“I think this is absolutely one of the biggest witch hunts we’ve seen in years, and I don’t think that’s because Martha is a witch,” Small said. “If Martha was not blond, not female, not so rich and powerful, the reaction would be very different.”

His site urges visitors to write to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to drop the charges against Stewart and to Jay Leno and David Letterman to stop making jokes about her. (A typical Letterman line: “It was gorgeous here today! Just beautiful. It was so nice that Martha Stewart was doing her insider trading outside.”)

Small’s site also asks visitors to write CBS to return Stewart’s television show to 9 a.m., its time before the network moved it to 2 a.m.


Ferdinand Gajewski, who, like Stewart, is 62, described the domestic diva’s show as the only intelligent option on television. A bachelor and a Juilliard-trained pianist, Gajewski said he doesn’t cook or decorate but appreciates Stewart because she pays attention to taste.

“I think perhaps her show is the only place I know of that one can learn something about taste,” Gajewski said, adding that the composer Chopin was reading about the subject of taste when he died. Gajewski has written letters to the editor in support of Stewart.


Reporters, banned by Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum from watching jury selection, focused instead on Stewart’s taste in clothing. She sailed past a swarm of about 100 photographers and reporters into the courthouse wearing a brown pants suit with matching blouse and waved a quick “Good morning,” after Smith, a Camden housing inspector, shouted her support.

In the courtroom, Stewart, in a barely audible voice, again pleaded “not guilty” to the charges in a revised indictment against her.

Cedarbaum instructed the 32 potential jurors that they must be free of “preconceived notions or sympathies” before letting lawyers question them in her chambers.

Reporters waiting for news busied themselves with other questions: “Were those spikes or a stacked heel?” one asked of Stewart’s shoes, which were impossible to see from behind the barrier that separated the defendants from the public.