Ex-Rep. Rostenkowski Freed After Year in Federal Prison
Dan Rostenkowski, once one of the most powerful members of Congress, was released Tuesday from a federal prison where he had spent more than a year on a mail fraud conviction.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons did not disclose where Rostenkowski, 69, went after leaving the federal prison camp near Oxford, Wis.
Officials at the camp said earlier that he would serve the remainder of his 17-month sentence at a halfway house, and published reports had speculated that it would be in southern Wisconsin near his summer home.
The Chicago Democrat went to jail in July 1996. He had lost a bid for reelection to Congress in 1994, six months after being indicted on 17 counts of embezzling and misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars of government money.
The former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee had denied any wrongdoing, but in April 1996 he pleaded guilty to two felony counts of mail fraud.
In addition to the prison sentence, he was ordered to pay $100,000 in fines and restitution.
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