No remorse, no regrets for Martha Stewart

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" justify="">At the headquarters of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia on West 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, the office of the founder stands empty. Hushed. Desolate. <br /><br />For the last four and a half months, Martha Stewart has been away on a certain kind of hiatus, living and working in Alderson, West Virginia, serving time for her conviction on charges of lying to investigators about the timing of a stock trade she made in the final days of 2001.<br /><br />These days, around the corridors of the company that was so famously tarnished by what she insisted on calling "a small personal matter," the talk is of "homecoming" — the return on March 7 of Stewart, the founder and creative piston of a media empire constructed from pie crust, perennial beds and other ingredients of a well-ordered, if Eisenhoweresque, domestic life.<br /><br />When she decided to go to prison without waiting for her appeal to be heard, Stewart said the timing would mean that she would be out in time for spring planting.<br /><br />"Based on visits with her in Alderson, and our letters back and forth these past months, I can tell you she is, indeed, ready to get planting, having ordered her seeds and made extensive to-do lists, just as she would have done in any winter," gushes the "Editor''s Letter" in the March issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine, which hit stands last week. <br /><br />The editor, Margaret Roach, got twice as much space as usual to discuss the re-entry of Stewart.<br /><br />"That''s the thing about Martha — she is always Martha and never idle, distracted or down," Roach continued. <br /><br />"She remains ever the can-do optimist, starting letters even from prison with sentences like ‘Today was a pleasant day'' and, after a passage looking ahead to 2005, ending with ‘Let the fun begin!'' "<br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" justify=""><br />After her time in prison — playing Scrabble, teaching yoga, making things in pottery class and championing the plight of female inmates while taking shots at the federal sentencing guidelines — Stewart is expected to report to office that Monday morning, one of few activities permitted under terms of five-month home confinement portion of her sentence.<br /><br />Her influence, never subtle, is likely to be felt immediately. "Martha will get involved with whatever she wants to get involved with," said Charles A Koppelman, V-C of the board, who also serves as a paid consultant to the company and owns about a half-million shares. "And by the way, everyone can''t wait for that involvement."<br /><br />No one mentions remorse or penance or rehabilitation. Stewart, who is 63 and continues to fight the verdict a jury reached nearly a year ago, is being hailed from many quarters as a hostess-goddess returning to claim her rightful place at the head of the table. <br /><br />Because of the surge in her company''s share price, the inking of lucrative television deals and the sense voiced by some that she has paid a heavy price compared with the rats from bigger corporate scandals still running free, the bad times seem a distant memory. <br /><br />"I think she''s going to be bigger than ever," said Rande Coleman, a real-estate broker in Manhattan who describes herself as a longtime admirer. <br /><br />"She''s going to become like Oprah. A lot of people want to see her do well." <br /><br />In some ways, it is almost as if the various humiliations — investigations by federal agencies and Congress, having to step down as a director of the New York Stock Exchange, a trial documented around the globe — never happened.<br /><br />But happen they did, and a crucial question is whether the firm and Stewart, who is its public face and majority shareholder, learnt anything from the last three years, when advertisers headed for the hills, television stations pulled Stewart''s programme from the airwaves and merchandisers lost business because of that "small personal matter." But how will that play out? Before her indictment in June 2003, Stewart held the reins at the company. <br /><br />She was chairman and CEO as well as the largest shareholder; she had to give up the two titles after she was indicted, but she still fits the third description. <br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">NYT News Service</span></div> </div>