RENO — Former Nevada lobbyist Harvey Whittemore is a free man after spending 21 months of a two-year prison term in federal custody for breaking campaign contribution laws.
The 63-year-old former lawyer and political power-broker was released from a federal halfway house in San Francisco on Monday.
The Las Vegas Review Journal reports he can reapply for his law license as early as next year.
Whittemore was sent to a minimum-security prison on the central California coast in 2014 after he was convicted of using family and employees of his billion-dollar real estate company to funnel more than $130,000 to Sen. Harry Reid’s re-election committee in 2007.
Prosecutors say Whittemore tried to skirt contribution limits by writing checks to “straw donors” who simply turned the money over to Reid’s campaign. Reid was not accused of any wrongdoing.