Stewart calls time behind bars 'life altering'

NEW YORK -- Martha Stewart took up the cause of prisoners' rights during her five months in prison and calls her time behind bars "life altering and life affirming." Other white collar criminals have proclaimed themselves equally transformed after emerging from prison. But are they really?

"If you're changed, then let's see the action," said Fred Shapiro, a lawyer who served time for bank fraud in Philadelphia in the 1990s, and went back to prison for a separate episode of white-collar crime 10 years later. "Everyone says they've changed after they've left prison, but only time will tell."

Stewart, released Friday after five months in prison for lying about a stock sale, is the latest in a long line of high-profile white-collar convicts -- from junk bond king Michael Milken to hotel queen Leona Helmsley -- who have returned to freedom saying they have been renewed.

"I can completely identify with her comments about prison," David Novak said of Stewart. The flight school owner did time for mail fraud in 1997 and today acts as a consultant to other white-collar convicts.

"To this day, I look back at that time as probably the greatest blessing of my life," says Novak, of Salt Lake City. "Not the going to prison part. But the opportunity to be still and reflect upon a lot of the poor judgments I made."

His assessment is supported by Ellen Podgor, a professor of law at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

A prison term "is mind altering. I don't think it's just for the press what's being said," said Podgor, an author of two books on white-collar crime.

"But the stigma, society's stigma, that is the greatest penalty faced by white-collar criminals. ... That is not happening here. This case is different," she said, noting the surging price of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. stock and the public's apparent interest in her products.

"One way or the other, prison can and does change a person," said Howard Rubenstein, a New York public relations guru who has shepherded Helmsley and numerous others through the ordeal.

"There are some who learn a lesson and truly accept themselves and are contrite. They recognize they've done something wrong," he said. "Others turn sour, nasty, difficult and blame everybody but themselves. There isn't one answer to the question, that everybody comes out the same way."

Rubenstein would not speak specifically about any of his clients. But he and others said that, particularly for those accustomed to power, prison is equivalent to shock therapy.

Novak -- sent to prison for filing a false insurance claim in a staged plane accident -- said the first week of prison was enough to shake him, starting with the strip search and complete loss of control over the most routine daily decisions. His views of other people began to change when fellow inmates greeted him with gifts of deodorant, toothpaste and other necessities.

"To this day, every time I attend the sentencing hearing of a client I get nauseous that morning. I develop a facial tic. I get cotton mouth. Because I'm going through it again, and quite frankly I never ever want to forget that feeling," he said.

Shapiro says the effect of prison didn't sink in until his second sentence -- 16 months in 2001 and 2002 for opening credit card accounts in the names of dead consumers. Shapiro's wife was diagnosed with cancer while he was locked up, and underwent three operations. His inability to be there by her side persuaded him to change his ways for good, he says.

Now, when they read Stewart's words, Shapiro and Novak say they can't help but empathize. But are they convinced the millionaire homemaker is really a changed woman?

"It's very easy to come out of an experience with prison and talk a good game. Let's see what you do with your life," Novak says of Stewart.

Shapiro says even time may not make it clear to the public whether Stewart has changed at the core.

"Character is who you are when no one is looking" he says. "Only she will know if she has changed."

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