Ex-Lawmaker Exits Prison for Halfway House

After serving two years of a 33-month prison sentence for racketeering, former Glendale Assemblyman Pat Nolan has been transferred to a halfway house in Sacramento as a first step toward his release from custody, officials said Friday.

Nolan was moved to Sacramento from the Geiger Corrections Center in Spokane, Wash., and is scheduled to be released Aug. 27.

The former legislator’s early release comes because of credit earned for good behavior, said Steve Carruth, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Nolan’s wife and three children live in Elk Grove, outside Sacramento, which is where the once powerful Republican lawmaker will settle, officials said.

The family has been supported during Nolan’s incarceration by a trust fund set up by supporters, who insist that Nolan was framed during a federal political corruption sting.

“His friends all know he’s an innocent man,” said Bill Saracino, a Sacramento consultant.

When Nolan walked out of the Spokane prison Thursday morning, his wife, Gail, was waiting for him, said Mike Nolan, his brother. The two flew to Sacramento without an escort.

“They held hands all the way,” Nolan’s brother said.

Permission also has been granted for Nolan to attend daughter Courtney Rebecca’s first communion Sunday, his brother said.

At the 62-bed Volunteers of America Community Corrections Center in downtown Sacramento, not far from the state Capitol where Nolan once wielded considerable power, the ex-lawmaker will be required to get a job and pay for part of his keep.

“That’s the whole idea,” said spokeswoman Julie Weiss. “Get a job, pay your fees and become a productive member of society again.”

That job won’t be in government. “We probably wouldn’t accept that,” said Carruth, who likened such an arrangement to allowing a convicted embezzler to work at a bank.

Nolan could not be reached for comment. His brother said interviews are against the rules at the halfway house.

Until his indictment on six counts of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion and money laundering, Nolan was a Republican Assembly leader. The long-running federal probe of political corruption also sent former state Sen. Alan Robbins, lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson and onetime Coastal Commissioner Mark L. Nathanson to prison.

Though he pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering for accepting a $10,000 bribe from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for his help on a bill, Nolan maintains his innocence. He has said he agreed to plead guilty to one charge rather than risk losing a jury trial, which could have resulted in an eight-year sentence.

While in prison, initially Dublin Federal Prison Camp east of Oakland, Nolan wrote and distributed a personal newsletter to 1,800 friends and supporters, offering political insights, family chatter and reviews of prison food.