All was quiet at Martha Stewart’s Turkey Hill Road South home today as New York newspapers reported she is back in Westport planning strategy to try to clear her name.
The Daily News made it appear as if Martha Stewart posed outside her Westport home, but the small type said “photo illustration.” WestportNow.com photo
A black SUV with a private security guard was parked facing outward in her driveway and several photographers waited discreetly up the street. Joggers and dog walkers passed by in sunny, 50-degree weather.
Stewart spent the day inside. Her 89-year-old mother, Martha Kostyra, arrived late in the morning and later went out to run some errands.
Curious neighbors drove by her house and some stopped by to offer words of support.
The New York Post reported she returned home late Friday night while the New York Daily News said she was back Saturday where she was comforted by family and friends.
The Daily News said Stewart was scheduled to hold a teleconference with her attorneys and public relations advisers today to map a strategy to fight her felony convictions and rescue her reputation.
“Since the moment a jury nailed her on four counts Friday, Stewart has gone from a state of shock to quiet anger, remaining stoic throughout, said a source familiar with her reaction,” the Daily News said.
It quoted a neighbor and friend, Susan Warburg, as saying: “She’s very strong.”
The newspaper quoted a source as saying Stewart “has moved beyond regret and is gearing up to fight a verdict that shocked her to the core.”
“She said, ‘You did a great job, and we’ll have to figure out what we’ll do from here,’” the newspaper quoted the source as saying. “It was very Martha.”
Although upset, Stewart stayed calm and managed to console others after the jury’s decision, the source said, according to the newspaper.
When she and her lawyers and advisers retired to a room they had been assigned in the courthouse, some of the advisers were crying and some of the lawyers were in a state of shock. Her daughter Alexis, 38, was speechless, the account said.
Stewart got a little teary but did not break down. Instead she comforted others and suggested that everyone take 24 hours to cool down before discussing the next step, the source told the newspaper.
“She later went back to her Connecticut home without Alexis, where she reviewed news coverage of the conviction, the source said,” the Daily News reported.
“Her 89-year-old mother, Martha Kostyra, her sister, Kathy Evans, and her best friends, Susan Chesnoff and Warburg, came by to offer solace, the source said.”
It said another neighbor and former best pal, Mariana Pasternak, was not in the group.
Pasternak testified in the trial that during a Mexican vacation, Stewart confided in her that Sam Waksal and his family were trying to dump their ImClone stock – a key bit of evidence that corroborated the government’s allegation that Stewart sold after getting an insider tip.
Monday morning Stewart will have to visit the federal probation office to fill out forms for a report that U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum will read before sentencing Stewart in June.
I am very sad for Martha Stewart, and for our country. They are destroying a National Icon who has added pleasure, beauty and assistance to so many lives. She deserves forgiveness and help for being human and capable of making a mistake. She does not deserve to be destroyed; she will never be replaced and we will all be losers.
I blame the media,from day one they put martha on page one,while kenny boy and the others were on page ten.The publics anger of corporate corruption went to martha.The prosecutors were the liars,martha was prosecuted for who she is,I hope when the unemployment figures come out that this administration takes full credit for the destruction of a great company,tell the employees of marthas company about how you brought down a desperate criminal.Shame on you.