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Martha Stewart Proposes Community Service to Lessen Sentence
NEW YORK -- As her sentencing day approaches, Martha Stewart has come up with a plan to stay out of jail or at least get out early. Newsweek magazine has learned that Stewart will seek to serve all or part of her jail sentence helping underprivileged women start their own businesses.Recently, Stewart approached the nonprofit New York-basedWomen's Venture Fund, offering to work 20 hours a week teaching low-income and minority women to become entrepreneurs, Newsweek reports in the current issue, on newsstands yesterday. She even created her own curriculum to teach the art and science of cleaning.Detroit Bureau Chief Keith Naughton says Stewart called Women's Venture Fund President Maria Otero about a month ago for a meeting. When she arrived at WVF's offices, she brought along her newly hired "sentencing consultant," Herb Hoelter, known as the get-out-of-jail guy to the stars. Hoelter has helped shorten sentences for Leona Helmsley and Michael Milken and is reportedly working with Enron executives. Stewart then pitched herself for 90 minutes."She had a need to sell herself," Otero says.Stewart's plan called for her to work at WVF 10 to 20 hours a week for one or two years. She would teach classes on how to start and run a business, as well as mentor a handful of women one-on-one. Stewart, after all, built a $250 million company from a small catering outfit. The cleaning-service idea comes from her own experience of having difficulty finding employees to clean her estates.Stewart's well-crafted proposal overcame Otero's fear of associating with such a controversial figure. "Her conviction has nothing to do with her entrepreneurial skills," says Otero.Otero has written a three-page letter, which Stewart's lawyers plan to forward to U.S. District Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, explaining how Martha would be a boon to the women seeking to follow her example in business (if not in stock trading). Stewart intends to ask Cedarbaum to shorten her jail time so she can work up to 1,000 hours at WVF, Naughton says. But before her attorneys forward Otero's letter to the judge, they plan to ask the judge to throw out her convictions for conspiracy, lying to federal agents and obstructing the ImClone stock-scandal investigation. In a filing expected this week, her lawyers will argue that her conviction is tainted by the false testimony of a government witness. That maneuver might postpone her June 17 sentencing, but legal experts doubt it will work. "At the most, the judge might throw out the conspiracy count," says Columbia law professor John Coffee. "But that won't reduce the 10 to 16 months she's facing."That's why Stewart is working hard on what legal pros call an "alternative sentence.'' Her proposal overcame Otero's fear of associating with such a controversial figure. "Her conviction has nothing to do with her entrepreneurial skills," says Otero.Winning over the judge will be much harder. Judges are handing down stiff sentences to white-collar criminals. "If you give it to Martha Stewart," says Coffee, "then every white-collar defendant from Enron to WorldCom could ask for community service instead of jail."Even Stewart is skeptical. "Her view is that the court will give her the harshest sentence possible," says Otero.Visit Newsweek: www.newsweek.msnbc.com "