‘Personal nightmare’ over for Stewart

Homemaking diva Martha Stewart will pay about $195,000 and cannot serve as the director of a public company for five years under a settlement announced Monday on civil insider trading charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Under the settlement, the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., a multimedia empire dedicated to stylish living, agreed to make a payment relating to losses the government said she avoided on her sale of ImClone Systems Inc. stock in December 2001.

Stewart agreed to pay $45,673, the amount of losses she avoided from her insider trading, plus $12,389 in interest. But the bulk of the payment comes from the maximum civil penalty of $137,019, three times the amount of losses avoided.

In addition to accepting a five-year ban on being a company director, Stewart agreed to limits for five years on her service as an officer or employee of a public company.

The terms go into effect on the date the court ratifies the settlement.

Her broker Peter Bacanovic agreed to pay a penalty totaling about $75,000, the SEC said Monday.

In a previous order, the SEC barred Bacanovic, a former Merrill Lynch employee, from associating with a broker, dealer or investment adviser.

In settling the charges, Stewart and Bacanovic neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the SEC complaint.

“This brings closure to a personal matter and my personal nightmare has come to an end,” Stewart said in a statement.

In March 2005, Stewart completed a five-month prison term for lying to federal investigators about why she made the stock sale. She was convicted of the criminal charge in June 2004.