Robbins to Start Prison Sentence for Corruption : Crime: The former state senator is expected to arrive Monday at a Lompoc facility. He will serve up to five years.

When he begins his sentence on political corruption charges next week, former state Sen. Alan Robbins is expected to report to the federal prison camp at Lompoc where he will begin a strictly regimented life stripped of the trappings of power.

“It is a work camp. It’s no-frills and each inmate will work 7 1/2 hours, five days a week,” said Todd Craig, administrator of the minimum-security camp, which is surrounded by a four-foot-high split rail fence. The guards are unarmed.

He said the 200 inmates at the prison begin their day at sunrise and are assigned to a variety of jobs that include milking cows and cutting grass. “All inmates are treated equally regardless of their previous status in the community,” Craig said.

In an interview Monday, he acknowledged that there’s “a high probability” that Robbins will begin his five-year sentence at the camp 40 miles northwest of Santa Barbara. But Robbins’ lawyer, Michael L. Lipman, was more emphatic, saying it was his “clear understanding” that his client is going to Lompoc on Monday.

Last year, Robbins entered guilty pleas to using his Senate office as a racketeering enterprise to extort money and to two felony counts of income tax evasion. As part of a plea-bargain agreement, Robbins, who resigned from his seat in November, began cooperating with federal authorities in their ongoing political corruption inquiry.

At Robbins’ sentencing last month, U. S. District Judge Edward J. Garcia ordered the Van Nuys Democrat to serve five years in prison and pay $475,000 in fines and restitution, a term that could be reduced if he continues to cooperate in the investigation. Garcia agreed to recommend that Robbins be sent to Lompoc after Lipman said Robbins’ mother, who lives in Camarillo, could visit him more easily there than at other minimum-security facilities.

Another federal camp at Lompoc, now a low-security institution, attracted international attention during the early 1970s when it housed former White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman and others convicted of Watergate-related offenses and became known as the nation’s most famous “country club prison.”

But Lipman maintained that the new camp, one of three facilities at Lompoc, is “not a country club,” describing it as “Army-style living.”

Craig painted a portrait of Spartan living conditions, with inmates rising at 6 a.m. Most inmates begin their work assignments at 7:30 and are on the job until 3:30 p.m., except for a 30-minute lunch break. The jobs are broken down into several categories: farming, outside maintenance, landscaping at nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base and finishing construction of the prison camp.

In contrast to the widespread perception, Craig said, most of the inmates are not white-collar criminals. Instead, he said, 71% of the inmates have been convicted of drug and liquor offenses, while 13% are serving time for bribery and fraud charges.

After work, inmates can lift weights, play softball or basketball, take walks or jog, read or watch TV until 11 p.m., Craig said.

Before inmates begin their regular schedule, they undergo several days of screening and are told how the prison works. Craig said it is “like when you go to a university, you have an orientation.”

Asked whether Robbins was ready for his new life, Lipman said: “He’s as prepared as you can be.”