Feb. 23--Travel restrictions on ex-Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. were loosened Monday after he told a judge that the rules limited him to taking his children to see their imprisoned mother only about once a month.
Their mother -- and Jackson's wife -- is Sandi Jackson, a former Chicago alderman who is serving a one-year sentence in a federal prison camp in Alderson, W.Va.
She is scheduled to be released Oct. 18, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Jackson Jr., 51, entered prison in October 2013 to begin a 30-month term. He served time in two federal correctional facilities and a halfway house and was on home detention until last September.
He is now on supervised release, or what used to be called parole. Rules had required him to seek approval from a probation official every time he wished to travel with his children to see his wife, a court motion said.
"Due to the travel restrictions, Mr. Jackson has only been able to visit with his wife with his kids on average of once a month," the motion stated. The motion added that he has been unable to take the children to Chicago to visit their paternal grandparents: civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his wife, Jacqueline.
The restrictions hinder Jackson Jr. from "continuing to foster a stronger relationship with his wife, his children and their paternal grandparents, which has placed a great burden on the family," according to the motion.
Jackson Jr. was in Congress from 1995 until he quit late in 2012 amid a criminal investigation and after treatment for bipolar disorder and depression. Sandi Jackson, 52, represented the 7th Ward on Chicago's South Side from 2007 until she resigned in 2013, shortly before she and her husband entered guilty pleas to felonies in federal court in Washington.
Jackson Jr. 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. His wife failed to report much of that money on tax returns.
The judge staggered the two prison terms because of the couple's children, a girl who is now 16 and a boy who is 12. The couple have homes in Washington and Chicago.
