Stewart Wins Shot at Lesser Sentence

Martha Stewart is trying to break out of home, and she just got a dash of hope from a federal appeals court.

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled late Thursday that lower-court Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, who presided over Stewart’s obstruction-of-justice conviction last year, can reconsider -- and thus, shorten -- her sentence.

“It allows the judge the opportunity to resentence a defendant should the judge wish to, but the judge is under no obligation,” Megan Gaffney, a federal court spokeswoman, said Friday.

The appellate court has been granting the reconsideration request to all defendants who were sentenced prior to a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling on sentencing guidelines this year.

Stewart was released from a five-month prison term two weeks ago and is now serving five months of home confinement at her sprawling suburban New York estate.

The lifestyles entrepreneur is wearing an electronic ankle bracelet that monitors her location at all times. She is allowed away from her home for up to 48 hours a week to work at her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc.

A Stewart spokesperson could not be reached for comment late Friday.

Legal experts say Stewart will probably seek to have the home confinement sentence terminated outright, or have it substituted with a softer penalty such as community service.

“Home confinement is no picnic,” said Mark Zauderer, a partner at Piper Rudnick in New York. “While it’s not prison, it’s not freedom.”

Yet legal experts said it was doubtful Cedarbaum would shorten Stewart’s sentence. The judge rejected her request for community service at her sentencing, while handing her the lightest prison term possible under the guidelines at the time.

Stewart knows the odds are against her, but she’s doing anything she can to show up the government, said Jacob S. Frenkel, a former prosecutor now at Shulman Rogers in Rockville, Md.

“She wants to find any way possible,” Frenkel said, “to claim a victory over the government at this point.”