Former northshore DA Walter Reed seeks early release from federal prison

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Walter Reed has spent less than a year of his four-year federal prison sentence on corruption charges, but the 73-year-old former district attorney from the north shore is asking to be let out early, arguing that he has underlying health issues that put him at high risk for coronavirus.

Reed's attorney, Richard Simmons, filed a motion Thursday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans for compassionate release under the 2018 First Step Act, which aims to reduce federal prison population.

The petition also cites provisions in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act that authorize U.S. Attorney General William Barr to consider home incarceration based on emergency conditions and two memos that Barr has issued prioritizing home confinement as an appropriate response for some at-risk inmates.

Reed, who was convicted in 2016 on 18 fraud and corruption counts, waged a long post-conviction appellate battle and was allowed by U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon to remain free on appeal until last year, when he ordered Reed to report to the minimum security federal prison in Morgantown, West Virginia. He did so, according to the filing, on May 23 last year.

But now Reed is asking Fallon to let him go early, after being turned down for early release by the warden of his prison. Under the terms of the First Step Act, a district court now has the discretion to make such a change in sentencing.

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