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player ready...Dan Rostenkowski, who moved from a humble home on Chicago’s Northwest Side to become one of the most powerful figures in American government, returned to even more modest accommodations Tuesday night.
Rostenkowski, 69, will be living for the next two months or so at a privately run halfway house on Chicago’s Near West Side, contracted by the federal Bureau of Prisons to watch over prisoners making the transition from prison life to freedom.
Rostenkowski, whose surname for years was followed by the description “chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee,” swapped that appellation for the number 25338016 when he surrendered to start serving a 17-month federal prison sentence in Rochester, Minn., on July 23, 1996.
By the end of the year, he had been transferred to a minimum-security prison farm in Oxford, Wis., and on Tuesday, Rostenkowski was released to the Salvation Army Freedom Center, 105 S. Ashland Ave. He arrived around 7 p.m. and is one of 120 inmates there, according to Dan Dunne, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons.
Around 8:15 p.m., a worker at the center–who did not give his name–said Rostenkowski was asleep at his new residence, which is across the street from new luxury loft condos in a rapidly gentrifying area.
Another employee, who also didn’t want to be named, said Rostenkowski was in good spirits–happy to be out of prison. The former congressman, he said, has his own room.
Although a halfway house is not a prison, Rostenkowski will still be expected to behave like a man in custody. As a halfway-house resident, Rostenkowski will be required to get some type of job, using his salary to pay for his room and board.
He will be allowed to leave the facility to go to his job, but he will have a daily 9 p.m. curfew.
“He is accountable for his whereabouts,” said Todd Craig, the chief spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons.
About all that the bureau would confirm Tuesday was that Rostenkowski had left the prison in Oxford, not far from the Lake Geneva area where Rostenkowski and many other Chicago politicians have summer homes.
It is bureau policy not to identify the whereabouts of a prisoner’s halfway-house destination until his or her arrival.
Rostenkowski’s fall came after a series of revelations about official misconduct and corruption that emerged from a federal probe of the Northwest Side congressman’s activities during his 18 terms in office.
In April 1996, Rostenkowski pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud involving the operations of his House office and was sentenced to 17 months in prison.
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Rostenkowski was required to serve at least 15 months of that sentence. He is expected to be released from custody in mid-October.
It is unlikely that Rostenkowski would make a highly visible public emergence now that he is back in Chicago because prison officials usually frown on any activity that indicates that high-profile convicts receive any special or preferred treatment. It is expected, though, that he will be able to resume regular contact with family members.
“After he has demonstrated clear conduct, he may be allowed limited passes to see his family,” Craig said.
Rostenkowski reportedly did light work in the Oxford prison facility and is in robust health for a man nearly 70 years old.