04/14/2009

By GARY D. ROBERTSON  / Associated Press

Former North Carolina Rep. Frank Ballance has been released from prison but is serving the rest of his four-year federal sentence under home confinement, a prison official said Monday.

Ballance, a former Democratic congressman from Warrenton, was released from prison March 23 and is now serving out the last three months at home, said Gary Moore, a manager of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons' halfway houses and community corrections in North Carolina.

Now 67 years old, Ballance pleaded guilty in November 2004 to conspiring to divert taxpayer money to his family and others through a charitable organization he helped start while in the state Legislature. He began serving his sentence in December 2005, but sentences can be reduced for good behavior.

Ballance is wearing an electronic surveillance bracelet that prevents him from leaving his home unless he receives permission from probation officials, Moore said. Ballance will have to serve two years under supervised probation once his term ends June 23, Moore said.

Ballance served in the General Assembly over two decades before being elected to Congress in 2002. He resigned in June 2004, citing his ill health.

Ballance's attorney during his plea and sentencing didn't immediately respond Monday to a request for comment. The longtime telephone number for Ballance's Warren County home called to a place of business. A phone call to Ballance's son wasn't immediately returned.

Ballance, who represented the 1st Congressional District in northeastern North Carolina, was sentenced after reaching a plea deal in which he acknowledged conspiring to commit mail fraud and launder money.

Prosecutors said Ballance, during his previous tenure in the Legislature, channeled $2.3 million in state money to the nonprofit John A. Hyman Memorial Foundation, which was founded to help low-income people fight drug and alcohol abuse.

Ballance then diverted some of that money from its intended purpose, according to authorities.

Prosecutors said Ballance dipped into foundation money to give his son $20,000 toward a Lincoln Navigator luxury sport utility vehicle; to pay his daughter $5,000 for computer services she didn't perform; and to share $143,250 with his mother to pay for community programs.

As part of his sentence, Ballance agreed to repay about $62,000 and to forfeit $203,000 in a bank escrow account to the foundation.

Ballance spent much of his time behind bars trying unsuccessfully to void his sentence, arguing that prosecutors threatened to charge his son with a felony instead of a misdemeanor unless the elder Ballance pleaded guilty to conspiracy.

Garey Ballance, Ballance's son and a former state District Court judge, received a nine-month sentence on a misdemeanor tax charge involving the $20,000 he received from the foundation.