Martha Stewart's home confinement extended

NEW YORK - Lifestyle trendsetter Martha Stewart will spend three extra weeks under house arrest following reports that she violated terms of her home confinement by going to a yoga class and motoring around her estate in an off-road vehicle.

Stewart "has agreed to an extension of the terms of her home confinement until Aug. 31," her lawyer, Walter Dellinger, said in a brief statement on Wednesday.

He did not elaborate on why the house arrest had been extended and did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking additional comment.

Stewart, who turned 64 on Wednesday, served five months in a West Virginia prison camp and was scheduled to complete five months of house arrest on Aug. 10.

The New York Post reported over the weekend that Stewart, who was convicted of lying to investigators about a suspicious stock trade, may have violated the rules of her probation by riding around her suburban New York estate on a Kawasaki Mule four-wheel drive vehicle and dropping in on a nearby yoga class.

The newspaper took photographs of Stewart cruising around her property on the vehicle. It said she also surprised yoga students one Sunday morning in July when she and her daughter, Alexis, walked in and took part in a workout.

She is only permitted out of her home for 48 hours a week to work and for religious services, food shopping and doctor's appointments. Stewart also must wear an electronic monitoring bracelet around her ankle.

Her lawyers have complained that the terms of her home confinement have hurt efforts to revive her namesake company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc.

Stewart is set to star in two new TV shows -- a daytime lifestyle program and a spin-off of the popular Donald Trump reality show "The Apprentice" this fall.

- REUTERS