March 26 (Reuters) - Former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. was released from an Alabama prison on Thursday after serving time for misusing about $750,000 in campaign funds on luxuries including fur capes and a Rolex watch, local media reported.
Jackson, a former Illinois lawmaker and the son of civil rights leader the Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., spent roughly half of the 30-month sentence he received in August 2013 behind bars.
His father told reporters that the younger Jackson was doing well when he left the prison facility in Montgomery early Thursday.
"I was so sad the day he left," the elder Jackson said, according to the CBS affiliate in Chicago. "I'm so glad he'll be returning. It excites me to no end."
On Wednesday, a friend of Jesse Jackson Jr., former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, said Jackson would serve the remainder of his sentence at a halfway house in Washington.
Jackson, 50, once considered one of the most promising black politicians in the country, pleaded guilty to illegally using campaign funds on luxuries such as fur capes, celebrity memorabilia, mounted elk heads and a Rolex watch.
His wife, Sandi, a former Chicago city council member, was sentenced to one year in prison for falsifying tax returns that failed to report the campaign money as income.
The judge ordered Sandi Jackson to report to prison 30 days after her husband was released to reduce the impact on their two children.
(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
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