NEW YORK (CNNfn) -
Attorneys for Martha Stewart have filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District claiming that the process leading to her conviction was tainted.
Stewart's lead attorney for the appeal, Walter Dellinger, claims in the appeal filed Wednesday that repeated allegations -- both in and out of court -- of insider trading, which Stewart was never charged with, were never rebutted or explained to the jury and therefore tainted the jury's understanding of the charges against her.
The appeal also claims that the introduction of out-of-court testimony by Peter Bacanovic, Stewart's former stockbroker and co-defendant, was never subject to cross examination and proved damaging to Ms. Stewart's case.
The appeal further claims that the use of false testimony by Larry Stewart, a senior government official who served as an expert witness in examining documents and was later charged with perjury, should be grounds for a new trial or new evidentiary hearing.
In addition, the appeal claims that the presence of an outspoken juror who apparently lied her way onto the jury panel should also be grounds for a reversal of the verdict.
Stewart, 63, was sentenced in July to five months in prison and five months of home detention after being convicted in March for lying to investigators about her sale of ImClone Systems Inc. stock in late 2001, right before the stock tumbled.
She began serving her prison sentence at a women's prison in West Virginia earlier this month -- a move she said she made to get her "nightmare" behind her -- even as her lawyers pursue her appeal.
Stewart had hoped to serve her sentence at a prison in Danbury, Conn., near her home in Westport and her 90-year-old mother. Her second choice was the federal prison in Coleman, Fla.
Read the documents
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Ultimately, the Federal Bureau of Prisons assigned Stewart to the minimum-security women's prison in Alderson, W.Va., known as "Camp Cupcake." Stewart reported there Oct. 8.
Stewart was busy not only working, but making jelly at Alderson recently, a report said Wednesday.
The New York Post, citing an unnamed inmate at the minimum-security prison, reported that the guru of good living spent some time last week picking crab apples from trees on the camp grounds and used them to cook up sweet jelly.
"The normal person would get punished for that, but the prison guards managed not to see her," the inmate was quoted as saying.
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