Martha Stewart to Surrender by Oct. 8

Updated from 1:15 p.m. EDT

Martha Stewart has three weeks of freedom left.

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the founder and editorial director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) to surrender to authorities by Oct. 8. She'll then begin serving her five-month prison term.

The company's shares closed at $14.81 in NYSE trading Tuesday, higher by $1.64, or 12.45%.

The news comes less than a week after Martha Stewart started the latest rally in the stock by announcing she wanted to start her prison sentence sooner rather than later. Martha Stewart Living stock rose 92 cents to $14.09, putting the stock up more than 20% over the course of a week.

The judge on Tuesday also recommended that U.S. prison officials assign Stewart to a prison camp in Danbury, Conn., or Coleman, Fla., The Associated Press reported. Those are the two prisons she requested last week.

Stewart was sentenced in July to five months in prison and five months' home confinement, but the trial judge allowed Stewart to remain free while she appealed her conviction.

Stewart said last Wednesday that she has made the "harsh and difficult decision" to "reclaim my life" by serving her prison sentence as soon as possible.

"Recent delays and extensions have now made it abundantly clear that my appeal will not be heard till next year," Stewart said Sept. 15.

Stewart was convicted March 5 of lying to the government about her well-timed December 2001 sale of about 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems (IMCL). She was convicted on all four counts in the obstruction of justice case.

Stewart and her stockbroker maintained throughout the trial that the sale of Stewart's ImClone shares was based upon a limit order to sell at $60. Stewart avoided a loss of about $51,000 by selling on Dec. 27 of that year rather than the next trading day, when the stock tumbled after regulators rejected the company's application for a key cancer drug.

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