Fraud charge dismissed, others stand

Friday, Feb. 27, 2004 | 9:16 a.m.

NEW YORK -- The judge in the Martha Stewart trial today dismissed a securities-fraud charge that was the most serious offense in the homemaking entrepreneur's indictment.

Dismissal of the fraud count, which carried a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, will mean less prison time for Stewart if she's convicted of other charges. Four other conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges, which are still pending before U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, carry sentences of up to five years.

Stewart, the founder and former chief executive of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., was charged with securities fraud for allegedly misleading her company's shareholders in 2002 about her sale of 3,928 shares of ImClone Systems Inc. stock in December 2001. Prosecutors say she waged a public campaign to minimize the impact of a federal investigation of her ImClone sale on Martha Stewart Living stock.

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