Mike Blakely, once Alabama’s longest serving sheriff, was released from jail Monday after being paroled earlier this month.

Blakely, the former sheriff of Limestone County, served just over a year of his three-year sentence. He was released at 8 a.m., according to Franklin County Jail records.

Blakely, who is 73, was removed from office in 2021 immediately after a Limestone County jury found him guilty of stealing from his campaign account and abusing his power to get interest-free loans from a safe that held cash belonging to county jail inmates.

After a three-week trial, the jury convicted Blakely of stealing $4,000 from his campaign account by funneling the money through Red Brick Strategies, a Huntsville consulting firm. The jurors also found Blakely guilty of obtaining $29,050 in interest free loans from a safe that held money belonging to inmates in the county jail he oversaw as sheriff.

They found him not guilty of eight other charges of theft and abuse of power.

The office of Steve Marshall, Alabama’s Republican attorney general, prosecuted Blakely’s case.

The judge who oversaw Blakely’s trial ordered him to serve his sentence in jail, not prison.

Because Blakely oversaw the Limestone County Jail in Athens while he was the sheriff for nearly four decades, he was moved to the Franklin County Jail about 60 miles away in Russellville.

By a vote of 2-1 the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles decided in favor of Blakely’s parole on April 11 on the condition that he must complete 100 hours of community service.