Former district judge furloughed from prison

Former U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent was furloughed from a federal community corrections center in Florida on Wednesday and is in Pearland attending a family event this weekend.

Kent, who was a fixture on Galveston’s federal bench, was convicted in May 2009 of obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 33 months in prison after accepting a plea agreement and admitting to non-consensual sexual misconduct with two female employees.

On Sunday, Kent, 62, is scheduled to go to Fort Davis, where his family owns a house. He will complete his federal sentence under home detention. While there, he will be monitored by probation authorities.

His release date is Nov. 5, but he faces another three years of federal supervision.

Kent began serving his sentence in a federal lockup in Massachusetts, but he later was transferred to Orlando Community Corrections. Although he’d been furloughed, he still was listed as a prisoner in Orlando on Friday on the Federal Bureau of Prison’s website.

When questioned of the move, Ed Ross, a bureau spokesman, said Friday the bureau doesn’t comment about transfers until a prisoner reaches a different facility. He had no immediate information on the transfer.

As a bridge between confinement and release, inmates generally are transferred to community correctional facilities then halfway houses. Prisoners qualify for home detention only after reaching the final 10 percent of their sentence, Ross said.

Furloughs are granted in order to provide medical care or to strengthen family ties, Ross said.