Stewart, 61, has denied wrongdoing in the ImClone stock sale. She claimed to have had an arrangement with her broker for the automatic sale of the stock when it dropped to a certain price.
She arrived at the federal courthouse in Manhattan just before noon, breezing past a crowd of reporters and camera crews without a word.
The indictment came a day after Stewart's company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, issued a statement saying Stewart's personal lawyers believed federal prosecutors would pursue criminal charges soon.
The company also said it expected civil charges to be filed soon by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which warned Stewart last fall it planned to file its own complaint.
Stewart planned to plead innocent and face trial if indicted, her chief lawyer, Robert Morvillo, said in a brief statement Tuesday.
The scandal surrounds Stewart's sale of 4,000 shares of biotech drug maker ImClone Systems Inc. on Dec. 27, 2001 -- the day before the government issued a disappointing report on ImClone, sending its stock price tumbling.
The scandals had affected earnings at the company, which have been slumping. Revenue in the first quarter of the year dropped 15 percent from the same period a year earlier.
Stewart told The New Yorker magazine in January she has lost about $400 million because of the company's declining value, legal fees and lost business opportunities. And shares of her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, have fallen from $19 to just over $9.
She is a friend of ImClone founder Samuel Waksal, who is to be sentenced next week in Manhattan federal court after pleading guilty to six counts in the insider-trading scandal.
Waksal could get to six to seven years in prison. His defense team is seeking a lighter sentence, and prosecutors are seeking a heavier one -- claiming Waksal cheated ImClone shareholders as far back as 1986.
Waksal has admitted he tipped off his daughter Aliza to sell ImClone stock before it plummeted on the bad news. But he has not implicated Stewart, and his plea was not part of an agreement to cooperate with prosecutors.
Stewart's sale of the 4,000 shares came one day before the Food and Drug Administration announced it would not review ImClone's application for approval of Erbitux, which the company had touted as a promising cancer drug. ImClone's stock subsequently plunged.
Stewart has maintained that she had a standing order with her Merrill Lynch broker, Bacanovic, to sell the shares if the stock fell below $60.
Just this week, a new study conducted in Europe, found Erbitux worked just as well as a cancer treatment as a disputed study conduct earlier, and sponsored by ImClone, said it did.
Analysts have said an indictment could seriously damage Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia -- a company for which Stewart herself is CEO, chief stockholder, inspiration and best-known spokeswoman.
The company produces Martha Stewart Living and Martha Stewart Weddings magazines, a newspaper column, a television show and the popular Martha Stewart Everyday line of home products, like towels and sheets.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia reported sales of $295 million and a staff of 580 last year. It includes publishing, television, merchandising, Internet commerce and direct mail.
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