***Update!****
Martha to wear ankle bracelet for 3 more weeks!
Good things come to those who wait -- and those who wait three weeks longer.Lawyers for Martha Stewart Wednesday confirmed that the domestic doyenne has agreed to extend her home confinement until Aug. 31.The move comes after published reports raised the specter that Stewart violated the rules of her sentence with an impromptu visit to an upstate yoga center and unauthorized use of an all-terrain vehicle on the grounds of her Bedford, N.Y., home.Her confinement had been expected to end sometime around Aug. 10, a date roughly five months after her release from prison. On March 4, she ended five months of incarceration in West Virginia.The extension is a blow to the workaholic businesswoman, who turned 64 Wednesday. But the company she founded, as always, tried to put a positive spin on the unhappy news."We will be so happy to have Martha working without restriction at the end of the month," said Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia spokeswoman Elizabeth Estroff.
Meanwhile, the players in Stewart's social life were anticipating her return."We're looking forward to seeing her again," said Manhattan restaurateur Keith McNally, owner of Schiller's Liquor Bar and Balthazar, both favorite haunts of Stewart.It's a safe bet that Stewart also was making plans for nights out at DB Bistro, or a private fitting with favored designer Ralph Rucci.
But all that, and plans for her annual late summer trip to the Maine coast, will have to wait until September, according to the statement from Walter Dellinger, the attorney working on Stewart's appeal of her obstruction of justice conviction.Chris Stanton, chief federal probation officer for the Southern District of New York, said Wednesday that an extension of home confinement could be implemented by federal authorities if there were minor violations of agreed upon conditions that "are not serious enough to warrant a full revocation of the supervised release."The terms of Stewart's home confinement only make allowances for work, church, medical visits and grocery shopping.Robert R. Rigg, a criminal law professor at Drake University in Iowa, said it was "rare" to see someone adhere to the terms of a home confinement "absolutely 100 percent.""The question is are they doing things that lead the supervising officer to believe this person is bending the rules for their use?" he said.
Stewart's fall social calendar should remain unaffected."The Apprentice: Martha Stewart," one of more than half a dozen upcoming business projects, debuts on NBC Sept. 21.An associate who recently visited with the detained diva said Stewart, in keeping with her new image as a changed woman, also would probably throw her social powers behind the issue of mandatory minimum sentences for first-time drug offenders.One place Martha won't be going is to visit "old" friends in West Virginia, where she was incarcerated at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp.Federal Bureau of Prisons policy requires that visitors to the facility have a prior relationship with incarcerated offenders.The fact Stewart made friends, like poncho-making pal Xiomaro Hernandez, doesn't count, prison spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said.
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Here are the pictures of the line of shoes inspired by Martha Stewart. The line is called Just Out and it was created by Love My Shoes. Some are cute but those with the crochet leave something to be desired.
What I do is kick them in the pants with a diamond buckled shoe!
~~Aileen Mehle~~
