Robert Hickman, former director of the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, was released Saturday from the DuPage County Jail in Wheaton after serving 3 months of a 6-month sentence for his part in a corrupt land deal.
State law gives state and county inmates a day off their sentences for every day of good behavior, and that allowed Hickman to be released.
Hickman still has to do 400 hours of community service and remains on probation until January 2002.
His partner in the land scheme, former state Rep. Joseph Kotlarz (D-Chicago), was released from county jail earlier this month after serving a similar sentence.
The two friends were convicted of skimming $200,000 in bogus brokerage fees in a deal in which a corporation agreed to buy land from the tollway authority.