By J. Andrew Curliss, staff writer

Former state lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings was set free this morning from a prison in southern Georgia, less than a week after the U.S. Supreme Court decided that what he did wasn't a crime.

A federal judge late Tuesday had ordered Geddings freed immediately.

The order by U.S. District Court Judge James Dever III was filed late Tuesday after prosecutors acknowledged that the Supreme Court decision last Thursday upended Geddings' 2006 conviction on "honest services" fraud charges.

The judge's order was faxed to the federal prison in southern Georgia where Geddings has been held since July 2007.

Geddings was released about 9 a.m., according to the prison. His family could not be reached. Geddings will be required to check in with the federal probation office in Raleigh, the judge's order says.

Geddings' release comes as his lawyer seeks to also have his conviction vacated. While that process is under way, prosecutors agreed in a motion filed Tuesday that Geddings should be released. Geddings' lawyer asked Dever to act swiftly, and the judge did.

Federal prosecutors also paved the way for the trial verdict to be vacated. U.S. Attorney George Holding and two other prosecutors who led the case against Geddings filed a motion in support of setting his conviction aside, meaning Geddings would no longer be considered a felon.

The trial of Geddings, a well-known Democratic political consultant and former chief of staff to the governor in South Carolina, commanded widespread media attention in 2006. The case helped spur ethics law changes, and the jury's verdict cast North Carolina's lottery as having started under a stain of corruption.

Dever had asked for the prosecutors' filing in light of the Supreme Court's decision last week in a trio of cases dealing with the federal honest services fraud law under which Geddings was convicted. The justices said the law, which made it a crime for an official to deprive the public of one's honest services, should apply only when kickbacks or bribes are part of a fraud. The decision narrowed a statute that had been used by prosecutors in a wide range of business and public corruption cases.

Geddings had been convicted under a provision of the law upheld by courts for two decades that prohibited officials from secretly enriching themselves with their actions.

The charges against Geddings accused him of not disclosing that he had taken more than $160,000 from a lottery vendor, Scientific Games, at the time he accepted an appointment to the new state lottery commission in 2005. Prosecutors said Geddings was caught in the act of a scheme to aid Scientific Games. At the trial, state ethics officials said Geddings should have disclosed his financial ties as he joined the commission.

Geddings was convicted by a jury on five counts of honest services mail fraud. He was sentenced to about four years in prison. He had maintained his innocence all along, and fought his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear his appeal.

Geddings had argued that the honest services statute didn't cover conflicts of interest, but that a bribe or kickback had to be shown for the law to be violated.

That's exactly what the justices decided in a different case last week, prompting an immediate review of Geddings' conviction. Geddings, who had moved to Florida from Charlotte as his case unfolded, has been in a prison in southern Georgia since July 2007 and was due to move to a halfway house within months, according to his lawyer. His release date was set for Dec. 24.

"As a result of this ruling," prosecutors said in their filing Tuesday, "it is no longer a federal crime for state public officials to corrupt their public offices by engaging in undisclosed self-dealing."

IN DEPTH

Here are some links to documents that let you explore the case much deeper, including:

• A lengthy law review article by the prosecutors in Raleigh who handled the Geddings case. It's about the honest services law and the Geddings case.
• The U.S. Supreme Court decisions from last week, one dealing with former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and the other in regard to media mogul Conrad Black.

Attached to this post are two other documents of interest: The prosecutors' memorandum filed Tuesday in support of releasing Geddings and setting aside his conviction (Geddingsmemo), and the judge's order in the case (Geddingsorder).

Documents:

Prosecutors have filed a motion saying that the conviction of former state lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings should be vacated.

The stance is in light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week on the "honest services" law, and was not unexpected.

"The Government moves for the Court to release Geddings, as soon as practicable," prosecutors wrote.

The Supreme Court had said that the vague "honest services" law should only apply when kickbacks or bribes are involved. Geddings had been convicted on the charge related to not reporting his financial ties to a lottery vendor, Scientific Games.

"As a result of this ruling, it is no longer a federal crime for state public officials to corrupt their public offices by engaging in undisclosed self-dealing," prosecutors wrote.

(The prosecutors' motion is attached.)

-- J. Andrew Curliss

Visit the Investigations blog ... http://blogs.newsobserver.com/investigation ... read past investigative series ... find documents on recent stories ... catch up on ongoing issues ... conduct your own probe ... and more.

Documents:

Lawyers for convicted former state lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings are preparing documents to seek his immediate release from a prison in Georgia and they want to have his 2006 conviction thrown out, all as a result of Thursday's rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court that imposed limits on the "honest services" fraud law.

"We are working on an emergency application," Geddings lawyer Jonathan Edelstein said in an interview. "We are not wasting any time."

Among the charges brought against Ruffin Poole that are set to be dropped due to his plea deal are several alleging he committed "honest services" mail fraud.

Specifically, that he mailed in disclosure forms but purposefully and knowingly kept important information off of them. We've described earlier how the honest services law has played a role in North Carolina corruption cases, and is likely to change soon under scrutiny from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Baltimore Sun weighed in with a report over the weekend on the honest services situation, forecasting "that, at the very least, new limits on how the law may be used are forthcoming."

The Sun report is yet another good primer on the situation, which is likely to burst into the headlines within the next two months.

Here's more from the Sun report:

"It has become the principal federal statute in economic crimes and for public corruption cases," said Peter J. Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who specializes in white-collar crime. "It is very flexible."

The flexibility is exactly what some on the court find troubling. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote recently that honest services is "an expansive phrase" that "invites abuse by headline-grabbing prosecutors."

The law, Scalia wrote, has been used to make illegal "a staggeringly broad swath of behavior." Scalia suggested it could criminalize a lawmaker's decision to vote for a bill favored only by a small but powerful group in a district, a mayor who uses pull to secure a table at a restaurant and even "a salaried employee's calling in sick to go to a ball game."

Kevin Geddings, the former state lottery commissioner who is now in prison serving a four-year sentence. He was convicted of violating an obscure law that prosecutors argued Geddings had a duty to provide the public with his "honest services."

Michael Decker, the former House member who switched parties to keep former Speaker Jim Black in power, also is in prison for four years. He pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge that said he deprived the public of his "honest services" by engaging in extortion, mail fraud and money laundering.

Frank Ballance Jr., the former U.S. Congressman, was released this year from prison after serving four years. He was also convicted after pleaded guilty to fraud counts under the honest services law.

That law is about to get a thorough review by the U.S. Supreme Court, with some predicting sweeping changes. The New York Times offered a preview in today's editions.

In North Carolina, prosecutors have generally established underlying criminal acts in also pursuing the honest services charge, something not always the case elsewhere.

So the effects on corruption cases here are difficult to say, no matter how the high court acts.

Some have suggested the ongoing case involving former Gov. Mike Easley, who denies all wrongdoing, could end up in an honest services framework. Prosecutors won't comment.

But as a tool in pursuing public officials, current U.S. Attorney George Holding has been unequivocal.

After Geddings' conviction by a jury in Oct. 2006, Holding spoke to reporters outside the courthouse's front door.

"Today's verdict sends a very, very clear message that public servants in North Carolina may not lie to the people, they may not hide the truth from the people and they may not profit on the backs of the people," he said. "If they do so, they violate the law of honest services."