Jesse Jackson Jr. likely to serve home confinement in Washington

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WASHINGTON — Sometime Monday — perhaps even before dawn — former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. will leave a halfway house in Baltimore to finish his prison sentence in home confinement, likely at his house here, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

Meanwhile, his wife, former Chicago Ald. Sandi Jackson (7th) is headed to a federal prison by the end of the year to serve her 12-month sentence. The couple pleaded guilty on Feb. 20, 2013, to looting campaign funds of $750,000 and spending much of it on personal items ranging from the lavish, a Rolex and furs, to the mundane, toilet paper from Costco. There also were two mounted elk heads for his Capitol Hill House office.

Jackson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit false statements and mail and wire fraud. Sandi Jackson pleaded guilty to filing a false federal income tax return.

Jackson, 50, left the minimum-security section of a federal prison in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 26, departing after 4 a.m. for a 14-hour, 800-mile drive in a van with his family.

Jackson is probably headed to his DuPont Circle residence in Washington, though he has a home on 72nd Street near South Shore Drive in Chicago in the 2nd Congressional District he once represented.

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Inmates are generally placed in a halfway house in the area near where they will be released for home confinement, Bureau of Prisons spokesman Ed Ross said Sunday. At home, Jackson will be subject to spot checks and mandatory checking in over the phone.

No one answered the door bell at the Jackson home on O Street here on Sunday afternoon, and the Washington Post was still in its wrapper at the front door.

Since Jackson entered a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, on Oct. 29, 2013, the Jackson children, a son and daughter, have been attending a private school in northwest Washington. He was transferred to Montgomery on April 4, 2014.

Jackson was sentenced to 30 months, and several months were shaved off his time served, most likely because of good behavior and completion of a substance-abuse program.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson — no relation — granted the couple staggered sentences so one parent would be able to care for the children.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson told the Sun-Times on Sunday that during the time her husband has been incarcerated, Sandi Jackson has mainly been “a mom.” It is not known whether she is employed outside the home.

The U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prisons will assign Sandi Jackson a date to voluntarily surrender, no more than a month after her husband is released. At present, that date is Sept. 20.

Though Jackson Jr. is a high-profile prisoner, the transfers from prison to a halfway house to home confinement have been routine, Ross said.

“Now he is transitioning to home confinement where he will still be under the supervision of the Bureau of Prisons,” Ross said.

Jackson must be “accountable for any movement outside of his home,” which will have to be pre-approved.

Another requirement of home release is for Jackson to have some kind of job. His father said that in Baltimore, he was doing some “social service” connected work.

Jackson’s father, speaking from Chicago in a phone interview, said he has visited his son at the halfway house and he is “strong and clear and focused.”

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