US: The transformation from prison inmate to top corporate executive was effected with the ruthless efficiency for which Martha Stewart is known., writes Conor O'Clery in New York
Just after midnight the 63-year-old founder of the multimedia empire bearing her name walked out of federal prison in West Virginia and was whisked to a waiting corporate jet.
The news of her release two days early was announced on the official Martha Stewart website beside a picture of her smiling and cradling a hen and an invitation to well-wishers to post a welcome-home message.
Home for Ms Stewart while she serves a further five months under house arrest as a convicted felon is a 62-hectare (163-acre) country estate 60 kilometres north of New York. Media helicopters buzzed overhead and TV trucks jammed the narrow roads as her release was treated as a national event.
Ms Stewart emerged into the snowy pastures to stroke horses and bring coffee and doughnuts to the journalists camped outside.
She told them she had missed cappuccino while in prison. Her job had been "washing, scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming, raking leaves, and much more", she said on the website, and she would much rather be doing all that at home.
Shares in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia have quadrupled in value since she was sentenced in August, and yesterday they rose by a further 6.65 per cent, proof that her brand image has not been affected by her imprisonment and may even be stronger than before.
Ms Stewart will start receiving her $900,000 annual company salary again and she is to be allowed to leave the estate to work for 48 hours a week.
She was convicted of lying to federal agents investigating the sale of nearly 4,000 shares in the biotechnology company ImClone Systems just before they plummeted in value. She began serving her sentence last October.