NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
Martha Stewart met with a probation officer Monday after last week's jury verdict found her guilty on four counts of obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a well-timed stock sale.
 |
|
| Stewart and her lawyer, Robert Morvillo, leave federal court after her probation hearing Monday. |
Stewart was there for a little more than a hour before departing.
Stewart's former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, convicted on four charges in last week's verdict, also appeared at the probation office earlier Monday.
Separately, the board of directors of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO: Research, Estimates) was set to meet Monday afternoon, according to a source close to the situation.
The company is trying to determine what direction to take in the wake of the conviction, with sources indicating that Stewart met at her Westport, Conn., home this weekend with company CEO Sharon Patrick.
Industry analysts and brand experts say the company faces the difficult task of trying to redirect the company away from what may be a dying brand.
Both Stewart and Bacanovic face up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines for each count. Attorneys for both defendants said they would appeal the ruling.
Monday's sessions were for Stewart and Bacanovic to discuss their backgrounds -- including her education, family, and medical history -- with a probation officer, who will then prepare a presentencing report for the judge based on federal sentencing guidelines.
| 
| |
|
|
|
|
|
 Martha Stewart meets with probation officers after having been convicted on all four counts against her. CNNfn's Mary Snow reports.
|
Play video
(Real or Windows Media)
|
|
|
|
|
|
U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum has discretion in determining the actual punishment.
The probation department applies several criteria to complete its pre-sentence report, and accepting responsibility for the crime is a big part of it, said CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
That may explain why a statement on a Stewart Web site, marthatalks.com, eliminated the words "knowing that I have done nothing wrong" shortly after its response to the verdict was posted Friday.
Sentencing in the case is set for June 17, with legal experts saying Stewart will probably draw one to two years in prison -- nothing close to the maximum 20 years she faces.
Stewart also still faces a civil insider-trading suit, brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
She avoided a loss of about $51,000 by selling nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone (IMCL: Research, Estimates) stock on Dec. 27, 2001, rather than the next trading day, when the stock tumbled after regulators rejected the company's application for a key cancer drug.
Prosecutors argued that Stewart sold her ImClone stock only after Bacanovic told his assistant, Douglas Faneuil, to tip her off that ImClone founder Sam Waksal was trying to sell. Stewart and Bacanovic had told investigators they had an arrangement to sell once the stock fell to $60.
Bacanovic was broker to both Stewart and Waksal, who is serving a seven-year prison term after pleading guilty to securities fraud over his family's sale of ImClone shares.
Ironically, Erbitux, the ImClone drug at the heart of the scandal, was approved by regulators last month to treat certain forms of cancer.
|
