Martha Stewart lost her billionaire status in 2002 after the price of her company’s stock plummeted following a stock-trading scandal.
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Following the scandal, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s valuation dropped over 70%, from an all-time high of $39.75 per share to $7.84 by the time Stewart was indicted in 2003, ABC News and the Herald-Tribune reported.
The charges stemmed from an incident in December 2001.
In 2004, Stewart was found guilty of one count of conspiracy, two counts of making false statements, and one count of obstruction of agency proceedings, and she spent five months in a minimum-security prison, followed by five months of home confinement, The New York Times reported.
After receiving information that was not publicly available, she sold off her ImClone Systems shares a day before their value plunged, avoiding a loss of more than $45,000, the US Securities and Exchange Commission said. Prosecutors said she later lied about receiving the tip-off, the “Martha” documentary explained.
Forbes reported that Stewart’s stock briefly went up after she was convicted of three felony charges in 2004, temporarily making Stewart a billionaire again. Stewart spent five months in prison and was also fined $30,000. After her release, however, her company’s stock dropped 40%, and by 2007, Forbes estimated her net worth to be around $550 million, almost half of her previous net worth.
In 2017, she called the experience of prison a “very, very awful thing.”
“It’s not a good experience and it doesn’t make you stronger. I was a strong person to start with and thank heavens I was. And I can still hold my head up high and know that I’m fine,” she told Katie Couric on the former “Today” anchor’s podcast.
