LaRouche Exits Prison After Fraud Sentence

Political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. was released from prison Wednesday after serving five years for fraud and conspiracy.

He says he will run for President again in 1996.

LaRouche left the Federal Medical Center about 5 a.m., said officer Jill Kruger, a prison spokeswoman. He was met by his attorney and was heading to Virginia, where his organization is based.

Dana Scanlon, a spokeswoman at his headquarters in Leesburg, Va., said LaRouche plans to “take a couple of days to get himself settled and then he’ll probably have things to say to the press next week.”

LaRouche, 71, served one-third of his 15-year sentence. He was convicted in 1988 on 11 mail fraud charges and one count of conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service by deliberately defaulting on more than $30 million in loans from supporters of his presidential campaign.

In an interview on the eve of his release, LaRouche said he filed papers from prison to run again in 1996. He has run for President in every election since 1976.

“This is a battle. We’re now in the greatest crisis of our nation’s history in the 20th Century,” LaRouche told KAAL-TV.

LaRouche pushes apocalyptic views, warning of impending financial disasters and strongly attacking prominent people and institutions.

Some people allegedly have hired so-called deprogrammers to kidnap LaRouche devotees to prevent them from giving fortunes to him.

LaRouche ran his 1992 campaign from his prison cell, and the Supreme Court last year allowed him to receive federal matching funds for that campaign. He offered a plan to rebuild industry and infrastructure, including a high-speed rail system, more nuclear power and a program to colonize Mars.

The U.S. Parole Commission decided to parole LaRouche after a Sept. 29 hearing. Under the terms of his parole, LaRouche will be under the supervision of a federal probation officer for 10 years, when his original sentence would have expired.