Michael Thornsbury, the longtime Mingo County circuit judge sentenced to federal prison in 2014, is no longer scheduled to be released early because of his participation in a drug abuse program.
Last June, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website last June showed Thornsbury set to be released on March 15, 2017 -- a year earlier than his original sentence called for.
Thornsbury, 60, successfully completed the Residential Drug Abuse Treatment Program offered through the federal BOP, the secretary for the warden of FCI Pensacola in Florida told the Gazette-Mail last June. Inmates who successfully complete the program can get up to a year shaved off their sentence, according to federal law.
Thornsbury had also, for a time last year, believed he would be released in October 2016 to a halfway house, the prisons website previously showed. Prisoners often make that move about six months before their sentences are up.
A search of the BOP website Wednesday reflected the original prison sentence of more than four years, handed down in June 2014 by U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnson. Thornsbury is now set to be released on March 15, 2018.
Johnston handed down the sentence after Thornsbury admitted to conspiring to deprive a man of his constitutional rights to protect a political ally. The 4th U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the sentence in May 2015.
Thornsbury, who resigned in 2013 after serving 17 years as Mingo County's only circuit judge, voluntarily surrendered to the federal correctional institute in Pensacola, Florida, on July 28, 2014, according to court documents.
To qualify for the drug abuse program, prisoners must have a documented and verifiable substance abuse disorder consistent with the American Psychiatric Association, among other requirements, according to information on the BOP website.
In addition to the prison term, Thornsbury was sentenced to three years of supervised release. Normally, while on supervised release, defendants are subject to periodic drug screenings. But Johnson suspended the drug testing requirements for the former judge because, "based on the court's determination," Thornsbury "poses a low risk of future substance abuse," Johnston's sentencing documents state.
The U.S. Department of Justice last year sent letters to the people it considers Thornsbury's victims notifying them of an early release from prison. Thornsbury had been set to attend a community corrections program in Lexington, Kentucky.
There are only a few ways a federal inmate can qualify for early release. Besides completion of the drug program, prisoners could have a shorter sentence recommended by federal prosecutors, according to federal law. Federal inmates can sometimes qualify to be released early based on good behavior, but only after they have served roughly 85 percent of their sentence.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.