Former Rep. Rostenkowski Dodges Reporters as Prison Term Ends

Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski finished serving time for corruption early Wednesday and went into seclusion without public comment.

The former head of the House Ways and Means Committee served 451 days in federal custody, most of it at a medium-security prison camp in Oxford, Wis. He remains on probation for the next two years.

Friends say the once-paunchy Illinois Democrat, who underwent surgery last year for prostate cancer, has lost as much as 60 pounds.

Rostenkowski, 69, dodged reporters as he ducked out of a Salvation Army halfway house and into a car with two burly men. Associates would not say where he was headed, except that he intended to return eventually to his lifelong home in a neighborhood where he remains popular.

He has been receiving his federal pension of nearly $100,000 a year, even while behind bars.

Rostenkowski pleaded guilty in April 1996 to two counts of misusing federal funds to buy gifts for friends and cronies and hire people for personal jobs like tending his lawn. The scandal had already cost Rostenkowski reelection in 1994.

“Physically and emotionally and spiritually, he’s in great shape,” said Howard Pearl, one of his lawyers.

“As a congressman, he was a great person, a wonderful human being for Chicago, for the neighborhood,” said a neighbor, Lubomyr Wandzura. “They love him here.”