Former OC Sheriff Michael Carona Freed from Prison

Former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona is back today with his family in Orange, serving out the remaining six months of his federal prison term for witness tampering under home confinement, according to one of his close associates.

Carona began serving his term on Jan. 25, 2011, at the Englewood prison in Littleton, Colorado. In recent months, he was moved to a Lexington, Kentucky, “medical center” for the Bureau of Prisons that has an adjacent minimum security satellite camp.

He returned to Southern California on Wednesday and was processed through a halfway house before going to his residence, where he is under home confinement, said Michael Schroeder, an attorney who visited Carona regularly while he was behind bars.

“He’s doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances,” Schroeder said of his longtime friend.

In Colorado, Carona was housed in a minimum-security facility called “The Camp.”

Carona’s term is scheduled to end Nov. 8, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Carona served as the county’s sheriff from 1999 to 2008. He was convicted on Jan. 16, 2009, of trying to get former assistant sheriff Don Haidl to lie during a federal grand jury probe, but was acquitted of other corruption- related federal charges.

Prosecutors said Carona, who was a rising star in the Republican Party, accepted cash and gifts in exchange for allowing access to the powers and resources of his office.

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City News Service

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