Stewart to Do Time in W. Virginia

Martha Stewart will do her time for lying about a stock sale at a remote West Virginia prison camp where inmates sleep in bunk beds and rise at 6 a.m. to do menial labor for pennies an hour.

The millionaire lifestyle entrepreneur confirmed Wednesday that she had been assigned to the minimum-security prison at Alderson.

Stewart, convicted in March of lying to investigators about a stock sale, had asked to serve her five-month prison term in Danbury, Conn., close to her 90-year-old mother and her own home in Westport.

But a source familiar with the government’s decision, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Alderson was selected because it was more remote and less accessible to the media than Danbury or Stewart’s second choice of Coleman, Fla. Those prisons also are overcrowded, the source said.

Stewart, 63, must report to Alderson by Oct. 8. She was originally allowed to remain free while she appealed her conviction, but she decided this month to serve time anyway to put the “nightmare” behind her.

Stewart said in a statement that she was pleased that the government had assigned her “so quickly” to “the first federal prison camp for women in the United States.”

“I look forward to getting this behind me and to vigorously pursuing my appeal,” she said.

Stewart’s new prison home is tucked into a town of about 1,000 residents that relies on inmates to clean up the riverbanks, mow grass and pick up trash.

Inmates at Alderson typically rise about 6 a.m. and work most of the day, making 12 to 40 cents an hour at jobs such as ground maintenance, sanitation and food services, said Dan Dunne, a federal prisons spokesman.

They sleep in bunk beds in dormitory-style rooms. There are no individual cells. Lights go out about 8:45 p.m. on weekdays, later on weekends, Dunne said.

Alderson, a 105-acre facility opened in 1927, houses about 1,000 inmates. Its past inhabitants include two women who tried to kill President Ford -- Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Jane Moore -- and jazz singer Billie Holiday, who was sentenced on a drug charge.