Qwest's former CEO Nacchio takes another step towards prison release

Joe Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest who was convicted on 19 counts of insider trading in 2007, took one step towards his release from prison by entering a New York-based halfway house.

Set to be released from prison in September, The Denver Post reports that Nacchio was recently transferred to the halfway house from a minimum-security prison in Lewisburg, Pa.

While he began his six-year prison term at his term at the Schuylkill minimum-security prison camp in Minersville, Pa. in April 2009, he was transferred to Lewisburg in 2011. Prison officials did not say why Nacchio was initially transferred from Schuylkill to Lewisburg.

Nacchio, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, has been assigned to a halfway house that is managed by a community corrections management field office in Brooklyn, N.Y.

After various attempts to appeal his 2007 conviction failed, Nacchio was ordered to immediately begin serving his six-year prison sentence at a federal prison at Schuylkill County, Pa. Additional attempts to reduce his sentence failed. In June 2010, U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger in Denver ruled that Nacchio must serve 70 months, pay a $19 million fine, and forfeit $44.6 million.

He led what was at the time one of the largest acquisitions in the telecom industry, reaching a deal to acquire US West for $44 billion in stock.

For more:
- The Denver Post has this article

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