Former Chicago Ald. Sandi Jackson surrendered Tuesday to a prison camp in West Virginia to start a one-year term arising out of a public corruption case that brought down her husband, former Democratic Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.
Jackson, 52, entered the minimum-security camp in Alderson, W.Va., shortly before 11 a.m. Chicago time, said Edmond Ross, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons.
The facility once housed Martha Stewart and was nicknamed “Camp Cupcake” by the media during the domestic diva’s five-month stay that ended in 2005.
Sandi Jackson was sentenced in Washington, D.C., in August 2013 on the same day as her husband. Jackson Jr. was given a 30-month sentence for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and make false statements.
He completed a shortened term last month.
A federal judge staggered their terms because they have two children and ordered Sandi Jackson to surrender 30 days after he left the bureau’s custody. Her first request, a camp in Marianna, Fla., was not granted.
Sandi Jackson represented the 7th Ward on Chicago’s South Side from 2007 until she resigned in 2013 shortly before the couple entered guilty pleas after deals were struck with prosecutors.
He was in Congress from 1995 until he quit late in 2012 amid a criminal probe and after treatment for bipolar disorder and depression. He looted about $750,000 from his campaign treasury over several years and spent the money on vacations, furs, celebrity memorabilia and two mounted elk heads, among other things.
She failed to report much of the money on tax returns.
Jackson Jr., the son of civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, served about 22 months of his original sentence. The term was cut for completing a substance-abuse program and for good conduct.
The good conduct reduction applies only to inmates with a sentence longer than 12 months in prison, so it appears Sandi Jackson will not qualify.
Jackson Jr. is now on supervised release, what used to be called parole, for three years. Sandi Jackson faces 12 months of supervised release after she leaves prison.
The women’s prison camp, with more than 1,000 inmates, is 270 miles from Washington, where the Jacksons have a home.
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