Rate it!

4 votes

Michael Vick was released from prison after serving 18 months for his role in a brutal dogfighting operation, US media reported.

Vick left the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas at about 10:00 UK time accompanied by his fiancee, after evading reporters who had camped out at the prison, the Daily News of Newport News Virginia reported.

The pair were to drive to his home in Hampton, Virginia, it said.

The suspended Atlanta Falcons quarterback is to spend the final two months of his sentence under house arrest, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper.

Vick, 28, will have to wear an electronic monitor to allow federal probation officers to track his movements, the hometown paper for his Falcons football team wrote.

Following the star quarterback's release from federal custody in July, he will have to serve three years of supervised probation.

Vick was sentenced in December 2007 to 23 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to operate a dogfighting enterprise across state lines. He had surrendered to authorities a month earlier.

The explosively talented player sparked outrage across the United States when he admitted sharing responsibility in the slayings of six to eight dogs who had performed poorly in fights, including deaths by hanging, drowning and beating.

Once among the league's highest-paid and most popular players, Vick is now battling bankruptcy and is indefinitely suspended from the league.

Vick's imminent release had US airwaves humming with debate on whether he should be reinstated by the NFL.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell reiterated on Tuesday at the league owners' meetings in Florida that he would only reinstate Vick when the player had convinced him of his remorse.

"Michael is going to have to demonstrate to myself and the general public and to a lot of people, did he learn anything from this experience? Does he regret what happened?" Goodell asked.

"Does he feel that he can be a positive influence going forward? Those are questions that I would like to see when I sit with him."

Goodell said no such meeting would happen until Vick's entire sentence had been discharged.

Meanwhile, US media reported that the player had expressed an interest in working with the Humane Society of the United States on a program to eradicate dogfighting among urban youth.

Society president Wayne Pacelle said Tuesday that he met in prison with Vick, who wants to be involved in such a campaign.

"Nobody was tougher on Michael Vick than we were," Pacelle said in a telephone interview with the Los Angeles Times. "I did not imagine 23 months ago that I would be sitting opposite from Michael Vick at a small table and contemplating the idea of him joining our campaign against dogfighting."

Before that can happen, Vick must serve out his transitional period of home confinement, during which he will be allowed to leave his house for work at a building job he has lined up that pays 10 dollars an hour.

He made it clear during bankruptcy court proceedings last month that he does hope to return to the NFL, saying he believed Goodell would eventually reinstate him "if I do the right things and show true remorse."

Meanwhile, Vick's agent Joel Segal told ESPN that the former player would put football "on the back burner" during his home confinement period, when he would focus on "reacquainting himself with his family."

AFP