Bridgeport’s ex-mayor is heading south to a prison camp in Pennsylvania to serve his time for corruption.
Former Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim, 49, is serving a nine-year sentence. Federal officials transferred him to the prison camp in Pennsylvania in January.
Ganim had been detained at the prison camp in Fort Dix, N.J., since he began serving his time in September 2003.
Officials at the federal Bureau of Prisons wouldn't say why Ganim was moved because of privacy issues, but they say prisoners are transferred all the time for a variety of reasons.
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The 49-year-old former five-term mayor is now at the McKean Federal Prison Camp in Lewis Run, Pa., about 90 miles south of Buffalo, N.Y.
McKean is known for its substance abuse program. Inmates who complete the 500-hour program successfully are eligible for a one-year reduction in their sentence, the Connecticut Post reports.
There is often a waiting list to enter the program, but the inmate has to show a pre-existing substance abuse problem. There is, however, no indication that Ganim ever had such a problem, the Connecticut Post reports.
Ganim is due to be released from custody on July 19, 2011. He can ask to be moved to a halfway house in Hartford for the final 180 days of his sentence.
Ganim is looking for a lighter sentence, saying federal prosecutors withheld information about their agreement with Paul Pinto and Leonard Grimaldi, both longtime Ganim associates who were two co-defendants and turned cooperating witnesses, the Connecticut Post reports.
Ganim claims prosecutors allowed Pinto and Grimaldi to use money illegally obtained from kickback deals to pay back taxes and fines, the paper reports.
http://www.connpost.com/ci_11673069
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