Sparrowhawk
07-19-04, 08:28 PM
Prison Would Give Stewart New Lifestyle
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Jul 18, 6:02 AM (ET)
By MATT APUZZO
(AP) Martha Stewart appears outside Manhattan federal court after her sentencing Friday July 16, 2004. ...
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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - The Danbury Federal Correctional Institution is only about 20 miles from Martha Stewart's home in Connecticut, but it will seem like a world away from her usual lifestyle.
If Stewart loses her appeals, she will in all likelihood end up at the low-security prison that is home to 1,300 female inmates.
The queen of high-thread-count sheets will get military-style linens for her bunk bed. She will have to trade in her wardrobe for prison khaki jumpsuits. She could get stuck on kitchen detail - backbreaking work that pays about 12 cents an hour and requires inmates to be up before the crack of dawn.
The women at Danbury have been closely following Stewart's legal saga and anticipating her arrival for months.
"I can guarantee you they're watching anything or everything concerning Martha," Joyce Ellwanger of Milwaukee, who served time last year there for trespassing during a military protest demonstration, said Friday. "I'm sure it will be the prime topic of conversation at the table at Danbury."
Stewart was sentenced Friday to five months in prison and five months of home confinement for lying about a stock sale that has tarnished her media empire.
A federal judge said he would recommend she serve her time in Danbury. The federal Bureau of Prisons has the final say, although officials try to place inmates within 500 miles of home.
For now, the sentence has been delayed pending an appeal.
Stewart's living situation will depend on whether she is assigned to Danbury's barracks-style prison camp or to its traditional cellblock housing. Either way, Stewart, 62, will have to spend her nights in a bunk bed.
"She's lived a millionaire life. I lived a poor life," said Dorothy Gaines, 45, who served time at Danbury before President Clinton commuted her drug sentence in 2000. "She's going to have to live like I lived."
Inmates can take classes, including crafts. The prison camp has a baseball field, volleyball net and walking track.
The woman who taught America how to decorate will not be able to decorate Danbury's concrete walls. Inmates can personalize their space only by hanging up to four photographs in their lockers.
Still, her homemaking talents could prove valuable: In some parts of the prison, inmates with the cleanest cells get to eat meals first.
It has been called Club Fed, but all inmates are required to work. They can request certain jobs such as plumbing, electrical or maintenance work. New arrivals and those with short sentences tend to get kitchen work, but unlike Stewart's television cooking demonstrations, this is a strenuous job that can require being up by 4 a.m.
"It's only five months, but it's still going to be prison," Gaines said. "She's still going to have to adjust to her new life, adjust to the fact that she has nothing."
She will still have an edge over some of the other inmates, Gaines said.
"Her home will still be there when she gets out," she said. "She won't have the struggles of trying to go find a job and being turned down because she's a convicted felon. She won't know what it's like to apply for housing and get turned down because she's a convicted felon."
Most people in low-security prisons are there for drug crimes. About 4 percent are white-collar criminals, according to the Bureau of Prisons. Danbury's famous inmates have included Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy and New York hotel queen Leona Helmsley.
"You meet judges and accountants, but you also meet the murderers," Gaines said.
Sporting a new tattoo, Martha Stewart says, She will be
designing a new line of clothing for gang members behind
bars, K-Mart will have exclusive right to the new
fashion she said. The tattoo on her neck will help her
identify with women in prison.
Email this Story
Jul 18, 6:02 AM (ET)
By MATT APUZZO
(AP) Martha Stewart appears outside Manhattan federal court after her sentencing Friday July 16, 2004. ...
Full Image
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - The Danbury Federal Correctional Institution is only about 20 miles from Martha Stewart's home in Connecticut, but it will seem like a world away from her usual lifestyle.
If Stewart loses her appeals, she will in all likelihood end up at the low-security prison that is home to 1,300 female inmates.
The queen of high-thread-count sheets will get military-style linens for her bunk bed. She will have to trade in her wardrobe for prison khaki jumpsuits. She could get stuck on kitchen detail - backbreaking work that pays about 12 cents an hour and requires inmates to be up before the crack of dawn.
The women at Danbury have been closely following Stewart's legal saga and anticipating her arrival for months.
"I can guarantee you they're watching anything or everything concerning Martha," Joyce Ellwanger of Milwaukee, who served time last year there for trespassing during a military protest demonstration, said Friday. "I'm sure it will be the prime topic of conversation at the table at Danbury."
Stewart was sentenced Friday to five months in prison and five months of home confinement for lying about a stock sale that has tarnished her media empire.
A federal judge said he would recommend she serve her time in Danbury. The federal Bureau of Prisons has the final say, although officials try to place inmates within 500 miles of home.
For now, the sentence has been delayed pending an appeal.
Stewart's living situation will depend on whether she is assigned to Danbury's barracks-style prison camp or to its traditional cellblock housing. Either way, Stewart, 62, will have to spend her nights in a bunk bed.
"She's lived a millionaire life. I lived a poor life," said Dorothy Gaines, 45, who served time at Danbury before President Clinton commuted her drug sentence in 2000. "She's going to have to live like I lived."
Inmates can take classes, including crafts. The prison camp has a baseball field, volleyball net and walking track.
The woman who taught America how to decorate will not be able to decorate Danbury's concrete walls. Inmates can personalize their space only by hanging up to four photographs in their lockers.
Still, her homemaking talents could prove valuable: In some parts of the prison, inmates with the cleanest cells get to eat meals first.
It has been called Club Fed, but all inmates are required to work. They can request certain jobs such as plumbing, electrical or maintenance work. New arrivals and those with short sentences tend to get kitchen work, but unlike Stewart's television cooking demonstrations, this is a strenuous job that can require being up by 4 a.m.
"It's only five months, but it's still going to be prison," Gaines said. "She's still going to have to adjust to her new life, adjust to the fact that she has nothing."
She will still have an edge over some of the other inmates, Gaines said.
"Her home will still be there when she gets out," she said. "She won't have the struggles of trying to go find a job and being turned down because she's a convicted felon. She won't know what it's like to apply for housing and get turned down because she's a convicted felon."
Most people in low-security prisons are there for drug crimes. About 4 percent are white-collar criminals, according to the Bureau of Prisons. Danbury's famous inmates have included Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy and New York hotel queen Leona Helmsley.
"You meet judges and accountants, but you also meet the murderers," Gaines said.
Sporting a new tattoo, Martha Stewart says, She will be
designing a new line of clothing for gang members behind
bars, K-Mart will have exclusive right to the new
fashion she said. The tattoo on her neck will help her
identify with women in prison.