Ex-Inmate of Fed Prison Offers Advice to Martha

N E W   Y O R K, March 8 -- Susan McDougal says she wants Martha Stewart to know there's no such thing as "Club Fed."

McDougal, a former business partner of former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton, spent nearly two years in federal prisons after she was indicted by the Whitewater grand jury on fraud and conspiracy charges.

She says the three federal prisons she spent time in were hard, cold and frightening

"In federal prison, there's not a private place to be," McDougal said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "There's not a soft place to sit. I remember thinking, 'is everything in the world concrete?'"

Stewart, who was found guilty of one count of conspiracy, two counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of agency proceedings last week, could spend time in a federal prison too. Although each one of the counts against her carries a possible prison term of five years and a $250,000 fine, legal analysts expect jail time to be closer to one to two years.

Stewart could very well end up at the federal prison in Danbury, Conn., the same jail that housed millionaire Leona Helmsley for tax-related crimes. The prison is only 22 miles from Stewart's picture-perfect estate in Westport — but it might as well be a million miles away.

Former inmate Karen Bond says the three years she spent in a federal prison for securities fraud were nothing like anything she could have imagined.

"I had bought into the media's "Club Fed" myth," Bond said. "I still had a belief in justice, apple pie and the whole bit and wow, it was a train wreck," she said. "I was assaulted by a prisoner. My shoulder was fractured. I had a concussion. I pretty much was halfway beaten to death," Bond said.

Stewart, the very personification of the good life, will likely be facing a lifestyle change so radical, it may well border on culture shock.