Former Gov. Rowland to be released from federal prison

John G. Rowland, the disgraced former third-term governor whose 2004 federal corruption conviction led to the state’s landmark public-financing program, turned 61 on Thursday.

But more importantly for the former titular head of the state Republican Party, his latest feder- al incarceration comes to an end Sunday, when he is scheduled to be freed from a Waterbury halfway house and return to his Middlebury home, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Rowland’s 30-month sentence was the result of a jury trial in 2014 that yielded seven guilty verdicts for his behind-the-scenes role in the losing Republican congressional campaign of Lisa Wilson-Foley, whose husband Brian Foley paid Rowland $35,000 in consulting fees. Rowland, who was also a former congressman, was also an afternoon drive-time personality for the conservative WTIC A.M. station in Farmington.

In July, 2004, Rowland resigned less than halfway through his third term, rather than testify before a special House Committee of Inquiry, after a ruling by the state Supreme Court. He pleaded guilty in December, 2004 as part of a pay-to-play scheme that included $90,000 in luxury flights from Key Air of Oxford to Las Vegas and Florida. He served 10 months in federal prison and several months of house arrest.

M. Jodi Rell, Rowland’s lieutenant governor, succeeded Rowland and led state lawmakers to ratify the state’s 2005 campaign-finance reforms.

Rowland