NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
Martha Stewart has vowed to appeal. In the meantime, a group of the domestic diva's biggest fans are taking her sentencing all the way to the White House.
Supporters are circulating a petition to President Bush, posted on a pro-Stewart Web site called savemartha.com, requesting a presidential pardon for the lifestyle trendsetter.
"A terrible injustice has been done to Martha Stewart. Her only real crime was to be too successful, thereby eliciting the enmity of misguided and misinformed citizens who feel that she represents the face of corporate crime," reads the document, written by John Small, the founder of Sunday Media, a marketing company based in New York.
Just after Stewart's sentencing Friday, 15,310 people had signed the petition.
Petitioners appealed to the president's concern for the unemployed, writing, "We are facing the destruction of a corporation that was not only enriching its stockholders . . . but was gainfully employing hundreds of people.
"After the trial, one of the jurors said this was a victory for the little guys," the petition says. "But it appears it's the little guys, the taxpayers, employees and shareholders, who really paid the price."
The appeal calls Stewart's convicted criminal actions minor compared with "the Ken Lays of the world who ravage their companies' and their stockholders' wealth as they amass their own personal fortunes."
(Separately, the Financial Times reported that the president's father, former president George H.W. Bush, sent Lay a note of support after the former Enron chairman was indicted on criminal charges last week.)
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