NEW YORK – A beaming Martha Stewart praised her employees on her first day back at work Monday and told the cheering workers who welcomed her that she thought of them every single day of her five months in prison.
“All of you are my heroes,” Stewart told the crowd at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc.
“It’s really wonderful to be back. I’ve missed you, as you can imagine. I’ve thought about you every single day,” she said.
She blew a kiss and waved as she arrived, following a weekend at her 153-acre suburban estate. The several hundred employees gave Stewart a standing ovation and applauded several other times as she spoke.
Stewart, 63, said she had had “the tremendous privilege” of meeting a cross-section of people in the federal women’s prison at Alderson, W.Va., and “learned a great deal about our country.”
She held up the gray and white poncho she wore when she left prison Friday and said it was crocheted by a fellow inmate.
“The night before I left she handed me this … and said “Wear it in good health,”‘ Stewart said. “I hope she is reading the news and looking at television because I’m so proud of her.”
Investors, counting on a positive bounce from Stewart’s return, have bid up her company’s stock to triple the level it was when she was convicted on March 5, 2004, of lying about a stock sale.
Still, the company is struggling. The staff was diminished by layoffs in her absence, and last week the company reported a fourth-quarter loss of $7.3 million, reflecting continued declining magazine advertising revenues and the hiatus of its syndicated daily cooking show starring Stewart.
Stewart will have to make some adjustments in her new working life.
She will be answering to a new chief executive and president, Susan Lyne, who replaced longtime confidante Sharon Patrick last November. Lyne greeted Stewart with a hug before the speech.
She also will be required to wear an electronic ankle bracelet to monitor her location during five-month home detention, but she was not wearing one yet at Monday’s appearance.
The arrangement allows her 48 hours a week to work outside the home, and she will commute the 40 miles to her office from her home in Westchester County.
Outside of her corporate job, she also is scheduled to work on two television programs, which could challenge her confinement. She might be allowed to do some taping on her grounds – if she also gets a town permit.
Stewart was convicted of obstructing justice and lying to the government about her 2001 sale of nearly 4,000 shares of the biotechnology company ImClone Systems Inc., run by her longtime friend Sam Waksal.
Rebuffed twice in her attempts to obtain new trials, Stewart opted to enter prison early rather remain free pending her appeal.
Comments are no longer available on this story