NEW YORK (CNN) -
Alexis Stewart, daughter of lifestyle maven Martha Stewart, says she's not interested in taking the helm of the company her mother founded, and that it would be wrong for her mother to go to prison.
"Not really, not really," Alexis Stewart told Larry King in response to a question about running Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia in the wake of her mother's conviction. An interview with Alexis Stewart, 38, is set to air on CNN's "Larry King Live" at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday.
Alexis Stewart said she has long held a consulting-type role with the company, but never on a formal basis.
Martha Stewart, 62, was convicted March 5 of obstructing justice, conspiracy and lying to investigators about her sale of stock in ImClone Systems Inc. (IMCL: Research, Estimates), a biotechnology company founded by her friend Sam Waksal.
Stewart is to be sentenced June 17. Each count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, but since Stewart has no prior criminal history, federal sentencing guidelines recommend terms ranging from a year to two years.
Alexis Stewart told King she is nervous that her mother could go to prison.
"I try not to focus on it," she said. "I think it would be incredibly wrong. But I'm hoping that won't happen."
When asked if her mother would handle prison well, she replied, "Oh, yes."
Alexis herself had a hard time with the verdict.
"I actually fainted," she told King. "Nobody really knows that, but it was so horrifying and incomprehensible that I fainted."
Alexis Stewart said her mother is already back at work on two new books, but she is "saddened."
"Well, I don't think she's going to give up," Alexis Stewart said. "I think she's incredibly saddened, incredibly saddened."
Martha Stewart's lawyers have vowed to appeal the conviction.
"She's disappointed over feeling like her life was wasted. Everything she did is ignored over something ... trivial, that maybe didn't happen," Alexis Stewart said.
Monday, Martha Stewart resigned from the board of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO: Research, Estimates), the home decor company she founded.
In a statement, the company said Stewart gave up her posts as director and chief creative officer but will retain a role as "founding editorial director."
Last week, Stewart resigned from the board of cosmetics giant Revlon, and Viacom announced it was dumping her television show, "Martha Stewart Living," from its CBS and UPN television networks.
Alexis Stewart said she is proud to be Martha Stewart's daughter, and she set the record straight on who comes out on top in mother-daughter culinary competition.
"As everyone knows, I'm a better cook and more of a perfectionist than my mother," she said.
Although Martha Stewart has often been painted as controlling and brusque, Alexis Stewart said her mother is kind.
"She's too, ironically, forgiving and kind, and -- I know people don't know that, but she was incredibly generous and she gives too much, I think," Alexis Stewart said.
She said her mother's biggest fault is that she's "too trusting."
Alexis Stewart, who co-owns a gym in the Hamptons, is estranged from and will divorce her husband, an attorney who was on her mother's defense team. She is currently dating someone she met during the trial, she told King.
Ironically, it was she who introduced her mother to Waksal, 56, the founder and former chief executive of ImClone. Alexis Stewart said she dated Waksal when she was 22.
"He's a great guy. He's very interesting, incredibly entertaining," Alexis Stewart told King.
She said she still keeps in touch with Waksal, who she said was "horrified" at the verdict against her mother.
Waksal is serving a seven-year term in a federal prison in Pennsylvania after he pleaded guilty last summer to charges of insider trading and fraud.
In late December 2001, Waksal tried to sell stock in his company a day before the Food and Drug Administration announced it was rejecting an application for Erbitux, a cancer drug the company has been developing. Several members of his family sold stock that day, as did Martha Stewart.
The prosecution said Stewart sold her ImClone stock only after her broker, Peter Bacanovic, told his assistant to tip her off that the Waksal family was selling. She told investigators she had an arrangement to sell when the stock fell to $60.
Bacanovic was convicted along with Stewart of four of the five charges against him and is also expected to serve one to two years in prison.
"I feel very sorry for him," Alexis Stewart said of Bacanovic. "I think they were both treated unfairly."
Ironically, last month the FDA approved Erbitux for treating some forms of cancer.
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