Bill Weimar, once Alaska's halfway house king as the owner of Allvest Inc., has himself reported to a privately-owned, federal halfway house to finish serving his time on corruption charges.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons reported that Weimar entered a residential re-entry center in Butte, Mont, on May 13. A prisons management official in Seattle, William Brown, said the Butte facility is privately owned and contracts with the government to house qualified federal inmates toward the end of their sentences.
Weimar began serving a six-month sentence Jan. 5 at a federal prison in Arizona.
After his release, due July 3, he'll have another six months of home confinement under the sentence imposed in November by U.S. District Judge John Sedwick of Anchorage. At the time of his sentencing, Weimar lived in a $5 million mansion near Flathead Lake, Mont., but was trying to sell his place.
Weimar pleaded guilty last August to two federal charges stemming from his efforts to get the state to agree to house inmates in a private prison in Alaska. The prison was an outgrowth of his statewide chain of Allvest halfway houses, which he sold to the private prison company Cornell Corrections Inc. in 1998.
Weimar admitted funneling $20,000 to a campaign consultant in 2004 to help a state legislative candidate knowing the candidate would support a private prison. The payment amounted to an unreported, over-the-limit campaign contribution.
The candidate wasn't named in Weimar's charges, but the description matched former Sen. Jerry Ward, an Anchorage Republican who lost the 2004 election. Ward has not been charged.
Find Richard Mauer online at adn.com/contact/rmauer or call 257-4345.
By RICHARD MAUER
rmauer@adn.com