Martha Stewart on Trial for Insider Trading
In 2004, Martha Stewart and her former Merrill Lynch stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, went to trial for securities fraud and obstruction of justice at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. A former stockbroker herself, Stewart listened to the testimony of Merrill Lynch employee Brian Schimpfhauser as her defense attorney Robert Morvillo stood by. Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum presided over the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. On March 5, 2004, the jury found Stewart and Bacanovic guilty: acquitted on one charge U.S. v. Stewart, 305 F. Supp. 2d 368 (2004). Stewart served five months in Federal Prison Camp Alderson in West Virginia and an additional two years of supervised release, which allowed her to return to her business empire.